"unflattering" poems
This connection
is not a tangible thing
by its nature, technological,
yet it seems we have
entered some shared place
where I can almost
touch you.
This place
is not a joyous one
by its nature, sweet
yet also bitter as we have
come so close but no nearer
and the comparison
is unflattering.
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 9:11 AM UTC
Smooth, strong, deep, therapeutic.
Hands playing on my skin like a virtuoso pianist.
Stroking, kneading, pressing.
With every stroke, his hands melt my stress.
Sooth my pains, physical and mental.
My anxiety fades. My mind rests.
Stroking, kneading, pressing.
His hands are sensual.
His eyes are closed, so his hands move on their own.
No distractions. Just natural. Instinctive.
Stroking, kneading, pressing.
I’m open and vulnerable, self conscious.
But his hands even sooth my flaws, and imperfections.
Press against places I keep covered.
Unflattering angles I would rather keep hidden,
But somehow his hands seem to find beauty even in that.
Stroking, kneading, pressing.
Dang....the hour is up.
May 19, 2019
May 19, 2019 at 12:08 AM UTC
Bloodstained sweatshirt with no recollection of how it got there, or who's it was.
Hands nervous and gentle, assured and rough, sitting terribly low on my hips.
Street lights an unflattering amber on our pale skin, illuminating his eager eyes and my perpetually self-conscious ones.
The sweet scent of teenage boy clung to him in the best possible way.
These are the details of the first time he kissed me, the push of the domino.
Since that night, with the neighbors' swing set alone as a witness and the brave frailty of a fall night's cold, I have been hooked. Trapped, spellbound, moonstruck, indelibly in lust with him.
My back against a concrete wall, hands roaming and tickling the valorous strip of skin that really should be covered by my shirt.
Lips on mine, hip bones digging into mine, hurried and heavenly. This was our last kiss.
It was not tender, like the first one. But I was still too enraptured to worry about a **** thing, and he still had the upper hand.
I do not know if we will get to re-do our last kiss, but god do I hope we do.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 3:25 PM UTC
The smashed ribs, the swollen legs
The state of heart every time the ground shakes
The endless tears, the unflattering fears
The subdued feelings, the impotent states
and I realize how helpless I am
As everything vanished within seconds
The cracked hopes, the buried dreams
The unbearable truths, the painful screams
The broken fantasies, the shattered desires
The situation where no one admires
Tried to stop, I tired to evade
Then I realize how helpless I am
as everything vanished within seconds
May 10, 2015
May 10, 2015 at 8:51 AM UTC
For the very first time
I trusted freely
Loved universally
Spoke in open truths
I believed a heart
And words that moved me
When my cracks grew large
And my flaws were unflattering
Words bit into flesh
Backed across the line of beauty
Where distance its kinder
Than reality
When all perception is clouded clear
For the very first time
I trusted freely
and I learned quickly
As I am
I will not be loved
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 5:45 AM UTC
trying to write
trying to think
the kids won't stop chatting
please get me a drink
from the deepest fount
of knowledge and peace
I would swim deeper down
to muffle the sound
reactions in check
DOWN -- hit the deck
I will not engage
your unflattering gaze
now sit down to eat
ahhhh this peace is a treat
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 6:55 PM UTC
it’s windy i think,
at least the windows are rattling.
the men in hard hats,
yellow motes off in the distance
and their jackets the colour
of poison,
they scale the façade
of the contralateral building.
they’re speaking, yelling,
probably catcalling, singing
their ugly songs on cherry pickers
like some crowned nest
of wagtails.
it’s early i think,
though the lights are always on.
they’re fluorescent, staining,
unflattering colouration, rinse
your skin to poverty,
to jaundice.
i’m here because of pills
i’m here because school is out,
i’m here because i’m tired
and i’m here because of you.
flowers sit at the side,
already dry upon purchase.
gifted awkwardly;
do we give flowers to a man?
a boy in sheets, foolish drunkard,
balloons with helium
to lift my spirits.
its lonely i think,
though it’s filled with people.
wristcutter, lupus, chemo
all thrown into one.
we’re what’s left post-production,
left to sit in an outlet store;
buy me for half-price
or else half an hour of company.
i’m the young one,
nurses scan me with motherly eyes,
the radiator warmth,
their rounded bosoms,
‘you remind me of someone’.
at twelve to three, she washes me,
asks me to lift my *****
so she can get at the two-day grime
of indolence.
it’s sad here i think,
at least the television is boring.
daytime ghosts and broken families
make my bedsheets gain weight;
even the balloon sags
in heavy misery,
nothing is mine.
sleep comes in fits
and starts in blankness.
it ends with my questioning
of where the dream began
and where hope had perished.
you haven’t come,
i knew that you wouldn't.
it’s hard to blame you,
what with my post-use pinings
long after you’d given up
and the way i act familiar
after treating you like a stranger.
i long to leave here,
so much the windows are rattling.
i’m here because i am
i’m here because of my job,
i’m here because i’m tired
i’m tired because of you.
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 11:09 AM UTC
We are just like this poetry
unflattering
unappealing
unappreciated
unfinis—
March 15th 2014, 1:15 a.m.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 2:15 PM UTC
I know what it’s like to be heartbroken too
it feels like a bomb
like the flowers that have been eaten alive by aphids
always sitting with you, uncomfortable,
a notch tighter on your belt loop after a heavy meal
or someone taking an unflattering picture of you and posting it all over the internet
you are ugly to yourself now,
and quiet because of it
I lost my clarity after I ran up the hill and rolled down it, clumsily with joy
it must have fallen out of my pocket or dripped out of my eye sockets
as they teared up from the pollen
I ask myself
what is true?
but it’s harder here, when I can’t be certain if there’s a ghost hanging around in my frontal lobe or if it’s just the pulsating fear of being kicked to the curb
that’s what being heartbroken is like -
always feeling like you’re being kicked to the curb for no good reason
it’s like,
what’s the point of getting up in the morning? I’ll make breakfast and then somebody will hurt me again
the point is
learning how to decipher the difference between apathy and acceptance
you’ll get there
redemption doesn’t count or feel at all rewarding if everything is easy
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 12:27 AM UTC
Was I maudlin over our breakup? For a minute.
If I think of you now, it’s like a slideshow of unflattering images.
At the time, my breakup buddies reminded me you were a bad
choice - like a brand of deodorant that gave me a rash or fashionable shoes that chafed, even after they were stretched.
“Ruca,” my girlfriends would say, “you’re shootin-terrible, they’re a million pork-swords in the sea.”
Finally, I pulled the trigger - double-tapped us.
At first, reminders of you, those siren whispers of nostalgia, were everywhere - like the moon - which, I just had to live with.
You passed from memory though, that’s how memory works. Events fade, like last week’s chemistry test, or yesterday’s lunch.
Now, if someone asks me, “Hey, remember, what’s his name, your big love from high school?”
I say “Nope.”
I chose to laugh, dance - and shoot birds at the moon.
May 30, 2023
May 30, 2023 at 8:37 PM UTC
I walk past the old woman
who wears unflattering red lipstick,
vivid as cartoon blood,
and jeweled chopsticks in her hair.
We meet haunted eyes,
full of defiant sorrows.
The pudgy little girl streaks past,
pigtails askew, sandals mismatched
by herself or a harried mother
she is either running to, or away from.
The boy with the closed face,
like a letter that no one opens
for fear of what it might hold,
reaches for the same book I am reaching for.
We smile at one another, surprised.
Such small things bring recognition.
We are the same inside.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
everything seems copied and pasted
everything seems done before
the fear of finally saying you love me
when i’ve heard it a thousand times and more
romantic dinners at romantic restaurants
romantic walks romantic breaks
dressing up in cheap lingerie
sitting on your wanton face
everything seems copied and pasted
all the good and all the bad
whispered words of tender undoing
bitter fights that drive me mad
stress filled dinners at stress filled restaurants
stress filled walks stress filled breaks
dressing down in unflattering pyjamas
pushing away your angry face
everything seems copied and pasted
something old nothing new
everything borrowed
Mar 16, 2013
Mar 16, 2013 at 11:15 AM UTC
She's wearing these long, bright red rainboots
On the sunniest of days
As if she's afraid that if she doesn't
She'll fade away and disappear forever
"You won't!" I want to shout to her
"You'll never fade away
Because you are the most beautiful thing
That has ever been permitted to stay in this world
To pass before my eyes
To smile... perhaps in my general direction..."
But she doesn't hear me
She is lost in her own analysis
Of the shifting clouds
The little whisps of whimsical water vapors
I see her spin slightly
Gazing up at their shapeless shapes
Her lips mouthing words that I cannot hear
For I am a coward and do not approach
O, What I would give to speak with her
For even the most slight of seconds
About even the most trivial thing in the universe
But alas, it was not meant to be
I walk slowly down the street
Past the cacophonous roaring of
The motor cars
As unflattering as they are to the ear
So she is beautiful
I arrive at the corner
The smell of tar and gasoline rise
From the steaming asphalt
I turn
And she is there
She is there and she is sitting
She is sitting on her bike right there
She is on her bike and I see her as I turn
"Hello" she says
She smiles as she says hello
I search for the words
To tell her how
She has owned my heart
Since the moment I laid eyes on her
"Ayeii" I say as the light changes
She giggles and rides away
"Hello I love you"
But it's too late
She can't hear me
I walk across the intersection
And continue my long walk back home
Filled with the hope that maybe it will happen again
Maybe I'll see her again
Maybe...
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 12:46 AM UTC
The **** does it really?
The **** does it all mean?
To caren’t oh so freely,
To not aim to read in between.
The **** is this monstrosity?
The **** does this represent?
This self-aware precocity,
Diving and thriving in its own lament.
Possessions stemmed from possessiveness,
Losses that led to lenience,
No ***** to give and not a **** to lose,
Too many have come and went.
The **** does it matter, truly?
The **** should it matter to me?
These thinking caps are on too tight,
I’ll embrace this coldness cruelly.
Not to say that I am so daft,
This emulation of me is unflattering,
I’ve come to love this newfound craft,
The ***** become irrelevant when they stop mattering.
Jan 9, 2024
Jan 9, 2024 at 12:48 AM UTC
Mommy, it’s late night; I want you to stop talking,
And drift off to peace as we sleep in our bed.
Then for a while I’ll wait for you to turn to the other side
So I can take my hand under the covers
And touch myself.
It’s not easy being me the whole day.
Hiding behind unflattering clothes, books, unkempt hair,
The other girl living inside of me tries to come out from here and there,
So I need to keep her tamed by
Telling her that I love her too.
She’s black, evil, and beautiful.
I know you wouldn’t approve
Of her existence inside your little girl,
But believe me, she’s the only real part of my fake world
And I need to be one with her each night
Only then will tomorrow morning feel alright.
I’ll touch myself in pursuit of the moment
When everything but pure pleasure, will be forgotten.
I’ll chase that instant; it’ll taunt me and tease
Then I’ll finally reach out to its heavenly release.
I’ll hug myself, exhausted and weak,
She will softly lull me to sleep,
The two of us, closely intertwined,
My black and my white.
And in the morning, as your darling,
I’ll start the day over,
Smiling with the thought of the secret lover
Who waits for me under the covers.
Jun 16, 2012
Jun 16, 2012 at 1:14 PM UTC
We're weathering this unbecoming world of words. In the womby vortex of disgusting speech. We're not the movement in which your mouth commoves in disgusting misuse and hellacious abuse. Shame on you! We're already sickened by your pageantry and similar symbolism, simile, and pedantic matters of the hand. Someone should have stopped you. Your shoes don't fit and are rather unflattering. We're well rested Reader's of the greater digest and your context is unsuitably off. We've noted this recipe of disasterous dactyls and abhorrent lines that masquerade limerick like a proverb when it ought not be an idiom. We're weary to walk in your idiot-dom, your startlingly stark choice of anti-matter, and material of unsettling misuse so indigestibally obtuse. She says you've manufactured passages with verbose tapestries of word laxatives. We're unimpressed by how many fuxks you've given. Lessons like these are earned not given, not learned but lived. We're not meant to cure your ails, only forward your adjectives, and collect your mail.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 9:47 AM UTC
You are quick to question but
Occupy cisheteronormativity mindlessly
Unprepared for queer identities
Assuming I lack knowing of myself
Reshuffling the same deck of cards
Engaging in a play of poker with hatred
Subjected to foul treatment
The words you spat
Unsolicited and unflattering
Chasing my mind endlessly
Kidnapping me hostage
I have been coated in sweltering biohazards
Nevermore to find protection and healing
To see another day seems impossible
If my own blood casts me away
Malevolence becoming motherly
Eliminating my mental health
,
Its those who think they are greater
Trailblazing a performative show
Sabotaging an already discriminated space
To go another day with your words
Itching down into my skin
****** becoming friendly
Envisioning how I'd feel left alone
From the moment you open your mouth
Orchestrating emotions like a ballad
Reconsolidating the toxic bond with binary
Can't seem to wake you up
Having to constantly do the work for you
And what am I left with
Naive justification and selfish excuses
Gravitate your energy into doing better
Exploitation is your entertainment
Oct 6, 2020
Oct 6, 2020 at 1:13 AM UTC
The universe has favored me .
I have pride in such a gift
Like the earths milky ways and thousands of colliding stars have fought against each other creating such a disturbance
You are a disguising piece of such a beautiful collision
And you have taught me how to love
Maybe it was god who punished me
In giving me pride in such a gift
Like you are the most ruined creation
But I have found pride in the spaces of your fingertips
He had gifted you to me as a sin
A sin that would flow from my lips
And settle as lust in my eyes
A sin that draws in attention without trying
A wreck that was made to never give
But I have disregarded all the burning buildings and I have chosen to see you for your mess
In your collision of colour and insecurity I have found what was made to fit me
Me ?
A born , disturbance
Just like you.
Full of insecurity and an unflattering mixture of hues.
Jul 23, 2016
Jul 23, 2016 at 2:17 PM UTC
I kind of want to delete everything
Because maybe then I could forget who I am
But with my luck it'd make me forget who you are too.
I need to believe that I'm good enough
But rereads make me think the opposite
And words in bed are too dangerous to believe.
You see something in me
And apparently I'm blind to it.
I've been trying-your words don't scare me as much these days
But I think I might be showing it more.
I guess I trust you, is all.
You scared me, bad.
Or I scared myself.
All I know is I had to retreat.
It wasn't intentional
Without defense mechanisms, war would be much faster.
Maybe it's a cycle.
I'm not sure which is the starter, my writing or my self esteem
But they both seem to fall terribly every few weeks.
The limelight is unflattering to everyone
Because lime green is such a horrible color.
I think it's the worst on me.
I don't think you can realize how big of a deal it is for me.
I don't know what I'm so afraid of
But nothing you say seems to help.
I still freeze
I still petrify.
It still makes me want to run away.
Aug 21, 2010
Aug 21, 2010 at 11:47 AM UTC
Why mom?
Why is it that I always have to rebuild my confidence when i'm around you
Mothers are supposed to empower their daughters
and help them to love themselves for who they are
I shouldn't be hearing that my favorite clothes are unflattering
or that you're giving me "constructive criticism" on my makeup
Why do you always ask me first when i worked out last
or if i've lost weight
why is it that i have to ask my boyfriend to pump up my self esteem
because i think i'm overweight
why do i have to convince myself that i'm beautiful
when deep down i still don't really believe it
Most of all why are you trying to morph me into this woman like you
I don't want your "modern" ********
and my **** is big and fat
men love it and so do i
so **** your modern clothes
I'm wearing high waisted shorts
because my *** looks fan-fucking-tastic
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 12:56 AM UTC
Steps for Life:
1. Wake up and brush your teeth twice and use mouthwash.
Make sure your teeth are pearly white.
Floss so your teeth don't rot with grim.
2. Drop in some eyedrops,
so no one can see that you cried.
3. Choose your clothes.
Don't choose something that isn't name brand.
Don't choose something that's ugly or unflattering.
Wear your waist trainer so that your waist can be thin and your
stomach is flat.
4. Get your makeup together.
Wear the right color eyeshadow, make sure your lashes long enough,
make sure you choose the right color to match your outfit.
5. Pick the right shoes.
Choose the heels that are in season.
It doesn't matter if they aren't comfortable you have to wear them to
be cool.
6. Go to school
Go to school and suffer.
Hang out with the popular kids.
Be rude to other girls and criticize them for not having the money to
afford clothes like yours.
7. Come home.
Lift a few weights to keep your arms thin.
Swallow a nasty concoction and have dinner so you can rid of it.
8. Repeat for the rest of your life because you won't ever be good enough.
To a girl, why is life about the size of your thighs?
The thinness of your waist.
The color of your eyes,
The color of your skin.
The flatness of your stomach
The shape of your jaw.
The length of your legs.
The way you walk and whether or not you fall.
They hid the pain.
Because pain is beauty.
And beauty was all that matters.
The biggest goal is to be popular but to be popular you have to be liked.
No one likes an unattractive girl.
No one likes a girl who isn't pretty.
To be popular, to awesome to other people, to be cool,
You have to make yourself suffer from the pain that is beauty.
You can't eat anything you want if you do you'll gain weight and you'll be fat.
You can't eat all 3 meals because you'll get fat. Instead, you have to eat a bit for some energy but then force it all back up because too much food will ruin your flat stomach and no one likes a girl who's fat.
You can't eat certain foods because it's messy and people see your face being a mess than say goodbye to your popularity because no one likes a messy girl.
You can't join certain clubs and you can't get straight A's. This is because no one likes a brainiac girl or all the other fantastic words.
You can't wear sweatpants if you aren't required too. Sweatpants aren't flattering and if no one likes you then neither should you.
You will suffer in silence
Because everyone thinks that you're fine.
You have to follow a strict diet or else your popularity will die.
No will see the cuts on your thighs because that's the only place they won't show.
You can cut your shoulders, your wrist or stomach but people will see and think of you as a depressed emo and no one wants to be seen with that freak.
Society has girls be trapped in a box where they follow the same horrible routine.
Inspirational people say that the box is paper and you can just break it to be free.
If the box is paper why am I so weak?
Why can't I break it?
Those inspirational people are wrong.
The box isn't paper.
It's stone.
Apr 21, 2018
Apr 21, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC
Sometimes the facts
Just hit you in the face
And all is silent
Even the accusations
Of your detractors
As in horror
You realize the truth
The sobering, humbling
Honest-to-goodness truth
It kinds of stuns
And sickens you
For awhile
As you realize
The advice
Was not an attack
But an observation
Of behaviours
Of which you were not aware
You see
You chose to smash the mirror
That portrayed
Such an unflattering image
It never occurred to you
That they
Whoever they were
Were right
Feb 14, 2010
Feb 14, 2010 at 5:19 PM UTC
The primary defining feature
of modern American diplomacy
is that we can somehow afford
to ensure the total concealment
of any unflattering information,
and, moreover, we can afford
the concealment of said concealment.
For the most part.
That aside,
whether through misaction or inaction,
we're still ruthless and unhumanitarian;
it's almost as if
we just want to eliminate
any and all
healthy competition.
Es scheint es gibt nichts neu unter der Sonne.
It seems there's nothing new under the Sun.
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 7:37 AM UTC
I've tried portaiture,
but for some old reason
I find it hard
to eulogize the living.
And when I do try,
the details just never seem
to fit right,
it's too much
or not enough
or just plain inaccurate,
from a few steps back.
I'll paint your actions, alright
'cause I can watch those happen
start to finish,
but I wouldn't pretend to be good enough
to encapsulate a whole person
-all that transient multicolor light under your halo-
with my petty vain jabber,
my incomplete vocabulary
of unflattering grunts-
take it as a compliment.
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 4:26 PM UTC