"unnervingly" poems
Salty air kisses my face in the darkness of the night
only the distant flashes of light
make the waves glow, the illumination of a calm moon nowhere in sight
the early autumn air rushes across my exposed skin
the lapping of the waves, mesmerizing pulls me in
warmth of a running engine purring under my feet
the cold metal roof becomes my seat
the black backdrop of the sky my ceiling
chilled hands feeling the light raindrops running over my palms
peaceful, unnervingly calm
as the storm rages on
every bolt of lightning unique and spontaneous
struggling to find something in my life that pertains to this
humbling feeling of isolation and solitude
i'd love to say i thought of you
as the low thunder rumbled seeming to run across the sea
to these very feet
but i'd be a liar and you'd feel significant
we were simply flashes of lightning, nothing different
blazing a night sky with our spectacular glow and intensity
flashes of memories
never striking in sync or together
i never understood the weather better
then how well i feel it at this moment
i was lightning in a bottle, you were never meant to hold it....
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 11:28 PM UTC
the words that once flowed off my tongue have all been dried,
leaving nothing but a cracked and barren wasteland,
desert termites squeeze themselves into places they’re not wanted,
the phantom figure of what was once alive cries for water in a broken voice that will never be heard,
even by the most intent of listeners.
the fruits of my labor are met with mud on my clothes and spit in my face.
at the night’s fall i bask in the eternal cold,
the air i abuse is extracted from my lungs with sleight of hand
and an unnervingly charming smile,
a cherry tree beckons me forward as it waves in the midnight wind,
the crickets fall silent and i am momentarily assuaged,
bathed in the yellow light of the moon.
time ebbs and time flows, bringing with her the judge, jury, and executioner.
like Saint Bartholomew, i am strewn up to be flayed,
from my pocket falls a needle and thread, a note from someone long ago left behind,
and a rotting apple core.
they belong to the Earth now,
and soon so will my precariously perched form,
my very essence pooling around the tree and staining the leaves pink.
at my decaying touch, maggots spawn.
as if trained, they surround my body,
a cocoon in which i metamorphosize into who i’ve always been.
in my chest, the vultures will nest,
feeling safer than i ever could have,
nothing left of the girl who once wove tales of grandeur and painted paradises in her mind,
but a torn canvas and an empty shell waiting for its puppeteer.
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 11:10 PM UTC
A small gust of air
and then a flash of rainbow
A dragonfly
My thoughts wander
Why are they compared
To majestic
Creatures of lore
When they are no longer
Than my shortest finger?
I shake my head
It is hard to stay focused
In this hot muggy air.
My fishing rod hangs limply
Over the unnervingly
Clear pond
My eyes drift over
To a patch of water lilies
Their petals droop
in the hot muggy air
I see their roots
And recall how easy it is
to pull one up and out
Stirring up the pond floor
In a flurry of mud
I sigh and lean back,
The old dock creaking
Taking special care
To avoid splinters
From the brittle wood
My feet-
Are the only cool part of me.
A drop of sweat
Snakes down my leg
And with a soft sound
Drops down
To join the rest of the water.
I am growing impatient.
The fish and I
Have something in common
We are lazy in the heat.
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 5:12 PM UTC
I used to write for fear of forgetting.
I stopped writing for fear of remembering.
Your arms loosening from around me
as you said final thoughts of us.
Your taillights trailing down the street.
Mirroring the floodgates from my eyes.
Now I have the typewriter you gave me.
An incessant reminder of all the words I never said.
All the words that are too late to make up for time lost.
I wrote to you anyway.
Without the intention of winning you.
Only hoping not to lose you,
the only person who could scare the **** out of me
and make me feel like I was floating
using one stupid look
that made me fall ceaselessly and unnervingly
in love with you.
I wanted you to know
that all of my convictions
that true love and fate
were just lies that are spoon-fed to us
so that we aren't starved by an empty life,
it all wavered when you smiled at me.
I want to tell you
that I used to never have dreams
and now you're in all of them.
Making reality that much harder.
Every letter was returned.
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 3:38 AM UTC
You crawl beneath my timid heart
Deploying those feeble desires
I speak with vivacious eloquence
But, I have not changed my reasoning--
Or, lack there of
I dive, head-strongly, into the same folly
Dreaming dreams I've halfheartedly dreamed before
With vehemence as my blind witness:
I stab at the sands, to search for sentiment
Or, lack there of
[The sentiment I had unnervingly hurled into the sea]
There is nothing to gain from this redundant Intention
Crestfallen, it follows me, with all of my lost chances
And, I have Run...out of places to peddle my Love
Or, lack there of...
Aug 5, 2016
Aug 5, 2016 at 12:51 PM UTC
It lingers in those midnight moments,
During the black stillness
Of the cold, technical mornings,
When all is silent,
Unnervingly frozen in time.
It hangs in the air,
Desperately waiting
During bouts of repetitive silence,
When memories move into focus
And doubt sharpens,
When the only noise
(Your shaking, lonely breath)
Rattles the walls,
And old thoughts accumulate,
Suffocate,
Like yellow fog circling the hall.
It's the little creature that
Perches on the shower curtain rod
As you stare at your reflection
In the bathroom mirror and nod,
Giving him his cue
To fly down to you,
Landing gently upon your shoulder
So you can feel the breath,
Hear the whisper loud and clear,
Saying, "everything will be alright, my dear-"
And at last you give a smile,
Stretching from ear to ear.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 1:48 PM UTC
The main reason I've tried around five new recipes a week
and all of a sudden enjoy cooking
and the reason I've bitten my nails down to bone
and texted my good friends way too many times
fragmented and weeping with questions
and the reason I've listened to podcasts minute after minute
and audiobooks
and ******* Damien Rice's creepy voice saying the words **** you
over and over again
and have a wishlist on every overpriced bohemian rag site
and entered multiple contests guessing Bon Jovi's lyrics
to win 50 dollars to Applebees
and the reason I drink red white and blue ****** can after can
after hours that end with "AM"
and the reason I don't feel like hearing my client's problems
and catch myself in fantasies about running away or climbing up into trees and staying there for months
and the reason I go to angry slam poetry events by myself
and watch Sarah Silverman crying on the television
and snorting coke
or scrub my gums until they bleed
to taste the iron with those perfectly prepared meals
I even thought about joining a meetup group
instead I just met up with my therapist and noticed she's wearing the same sweater I am
What the hell is she going to be able to do for me?
Take my seventy dollars and run
and I keep edibles harbored in the corner of my cheek
saving the ounces for the most destitute of moments
when I hear I have to eat lunch with my in-laws at Red Robin
and be blinded by their white supremacy
That's when I get ****** as ****
and find it all funny
and the reason I sprint into the woods at night and look up at the stars
sweaty and haunted
and the reason I keep "getting lost" on my way home from work
and stalk my ex-boyfriend's babies on Facebook
and wet the pages of Charles Bukowski
and then watch his documentary and scream at the TV in horror
and the reason I buy bags and bags of peanut butter stuffed pretzels
and my laugh sounds unnervingly different every day, as if my role keeps changing from **** to lesbian to raging feminist to kitschy wife lover to Eskimo to poet
is due to the fact that I am in a long distance relationship with my own life
my own soul
my screaming energy and robustness
my color
and craving.
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 8:58 PM UTC
The Vault stands resolute
Against acidic Time.
It must have much to say.
There is much it must have seen.
It's steady, stony gaze
Is all that now remains
To stand guard over nothing;
Duty-bound to stay.
What resides within?
It is aching to become known.
What resides within?
We rush the beckoning gate,
We push and pry and pull.
Today is a first for the Vault:
For the first time it loses a fight.
The darkness confronts us,
Accusing and severe.
Apprehension crawls up our spines:
What has been hidden here?
What resides within?
It is aching to be known.
What resides within?
We set foot inside,
Our steps unnervingly loud.
The cold sun nips our heels.
The darkness caresses our brow.
What's that ahead?
I believe it is light.
The faintest of glimmers:
Thin golden thread.
What resides within?
It is aching to be known.
What resides within?
With the greatest of caution
We open this new door.
Beyond is a strange old creature,
Back to the wall, sitting on the floor.
His flesh is pale and creased,
But his eyes are anything but idle.
"What is this place?", we ask.
His answer comes with a smile:
"This is Man's Vault.
It is a reservoir of what we were
Long before the missiles or the disease
Or by both we all were burned".
"Who are you?"
"I am the Curator, the Chronicler.
This place is of my own work.
I've spent day and night here,
Building it with record, picture and book."
"What may we do with it?"
"That is for you alone to decide.
The collection must pass to new hands.
My purpose here has been served.
In this present realm I will not much longer bide."
On concluding his final, heavy quatrain,
He breathed his long life out.
And the liveliness from out his eyes did drain
For several minutes, we stood in silence.
As a weight pulled down on our hearts.
A race had died before our eyes,
And left to us its inheritance.
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 11:23 AM UTC
Blue eyes dazzle the wretched sea
A lonesome gull calls out to me
It hearkens solitude unnervingly
I’ve sailed for leagues toward lands of lore
From whence come olden tales of yore
Of precious gems and forgotten ore
A wrathful queen dost rule this olden land
Brimmed with savage creatures and golden sand
Towards the fiery sun I direct my hand
This journey given from words of tale
Whispered at home on verdant vale
Has sent me to fight this mighty gale
Locked with vast blue in enmity
Facing horizon’s eternity
I blind pursue my destiny
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 4:10 PM UTC
Feeling fond of my own two feet
I lock the bike, let the wind cool the heat
I'm the one with the illegible handwriting
writing, nonetheless, on the porch
sustained by cigarettes and self doubt
for how else do I know that I'm sane?
Thoughts on the page, a tricky task
ink implying some permanence
if I write it
it is
at least on this page
unnervingly nervous, even at the most receptive times
the thoughts have a path, but can you draw the line?
only one will fit, not two
if you find it or not isn't my concern
it isn't my concern at all
But still it feels good to let words fall
flat on the page, flat on their face
exposed for what they've been all along
just words, good words bad words
just words, no overarching ideas
archetypes cast upon sounds and letters
I wonder if I'll be able to read this
certain bits may become muddled but by how much
less, I'm sure, than by the reader
hello reader, yes you. yes me.
I don't address you often enough, but
it's certainly you and no one else that
brings me to life, back to life
These flat ideas, shadows of flatter ideals
toes dipped in self doubt, but only dipped
should we submerge them, or is that too
much.
putting the pen down never feels whole
maybe it's because I rarely write about anything anymore
**** it, goodbye, till next time, my dear
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 1:41 AM UTC
They consume me from within,
the ants beneath my skin
arch and tear
another piece of me.
I don’t know which part
to offer next.
They carve their paths,
unearthing the core,
building mounds,
sitting motionless inside.
But still they bite,
those cursed ants,
with their tiny heads,
and unnervingly wide eyes,
ever hungrier,
gathering together—
those ******
****** ants.
Sep 24, 2025
Sep 24, 2025 at 1:49 PM UTC
light you on fire and inject you into my veins, per diem
I'll never forget you.
I'll end up spending the rest of my life chasing a high slightly comparable to the trips you took me on
I don't think that you could ever fathom the fact that being dope sick was unnervingly pleasant compared to trying to live a day without you
you drove me to rehab and didn't even park.
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 11:48 AM UTC
It is said that joy is within everyone,
that it takes only a profound understanding
of perhaps the most demanding entity-
yourself-
to reach that feeling, that unnervingly satisfying emotion.
*I dove deep
into the void I call a heart,
the dusty corners of my soul,
and I found..
nothing.*
However this is not surprising
for I left emotion,
and my innate humanness,
back at the intersection we passed last.
Remember it?
The corner of
Love and Betrayal.
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 7:24 PM UTC
I feel as though
I've been letting red wine pass through my lips
Tasting only it's bitterness and none of it's beautiful numb
I've been crunching on cardboard that I've mistaken for holy
communion
And everyone else is too ashamed for my sake to call me a fool
I've been in a fevered, drugged up half dream, unable to escape the waking world and never having touched a pill
My whole perception is teetering and careening
Seasick between inability to escape, and everything feeling unnervingly too real
But nothing is beautiful in this fairy land.
Apr 20, 2019
Apr 20, 2019 at 10:59 PM UTC
There is a self-assurance when driving alone in a car,
A broken leather bag tossed in the passenger seat, sunset at his back,
Sweat pooling under his shirt at the valley below his chest;
Earbuds pressed as far as they’ll go in
Blocking out violent winds as he goes over a perfectly photographed bridge
Fog rolling in over waves and through the painted orange beams of streetlights
He is living in someone else’s fantasy:
dressed to the nines,
the eights,
the sevens
Counting down shirt buttons to the way his belt sits a little too loose around his hips,
Black undershirt and unauthorized jeans smelling like stale convenience-store coffee
And strange sanitized emotions that unkempt grocery stores bring to mind--
He is beaming and
Expressing the love he has for this moment in the purest way he knows how.
He doesn’t believe that it is a singularity, an expression of a single thing
A tangle of words that knot into something unnervingly detached from
What he knows how to wrap someone else in with trained fingers
Under the guise of practice
Love is something he has found is undefined
He is not sure he believes in a staying love.
It comes and goes as it pleases in the moment,
It is the word he leaves reserved for the way yellow makes him feel;
How he felt when he saw green as green as green could be through rose-tinted glasses;
The steam rising from named coffee mugs, light streaming through windows;
It is the word he felt when he fell asleep entangled in someone else’s arms and legs
Socks kicked off at the ankles,
And in the sudden realization that he wanted soup;
In seeing painted purple pauses in thought scattered across his chest and shoulders;
In moth wings and bee stings, in smiles and kissing curiosity
It is an emotion he can’t take ownership of
Rather, it is something that dunks him into a washing machine and
Cleans him of the exhaustion that sinks into the minds of men who don’t cry
Honey-colored bubbles rising from bent fingers and wide eyes
Like jellyfish that don’t know any better than to pop when they reach the surface
Of water below a perfectly photographed bridge.
Sep 11, 2019
Sep 11, 2019 at 2:45 PM UTC
The blank, ominous void seems to absorb all inspiration of the ones who just had it all
The artists with the passion to write, to draw, to paint, to create
The absorption of all colors, all wonderful ideas
The bucket runs dry and the pages sit unnervingly blank
And the creator evermore frustrated as the void inherits the soul of another creation
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 8:58 AM UTC
Savage lands bare all life, depraved -Progress reaped from primal battles waged
Be vandal, than gentle dweller,
Counted by more viscious prey;
Hardpressed to walk
Eternally amongst the grave.
To have grown to know my ailments
and remain unnervingly Divine
One would surmise:
This Woman must have
always courted pain.
I sense within my core
The fiercest of hearts in shackles -
Felled by a love's entrancing beauty
As would burn bright a spreading flame.
She walks, though implicit of my crimes!
With pressed lips,
Cheating mine of innocence.
The culprit, cradled by the night, remains;
With choice of stolen hearts and minds.
The cost to free a fire-tempered soul
And find her love an altruist un-chained.
To have valued devotion
and thus I write Divine
She embraced the beast
Within this ruthless man.
A Moonlit piano sings of life's great works.
A starlit night framed for adoration.
Like your ever vindicating love,
Not the least of Guilty men dare question.
Between starved lines of manifested fears,
Might I find a new Lenoire in waiting.
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 3:27 AM UTC
Life often
leaves us
wanting
empty,
and
unnervingly
haunting
Aug 1, 2021
Aug 1, 2021 at 8:39 AM UTC
Your laugh,
my sigh,
melt away
in the citrus and heat.
The sun beats down
on my back
in undulating waves.
I drink it in,
but it leaves an aftertaste—
unnervingly inevitable.
Soon it’ll be over.
It won’t last…
I know.
But before I leave,
I want to waste
my last days
getting lost
in the haze
of your sun-kissed
summer face
Jun 25, 2025
Jun 25, 2025 at 5:41 PM UTC
On a rain battered hillside that looks out to sea
Clings an edifice, sullen and damp
The vacuum of night seems to suckle the light
From a singular, sickly lamp
The sign at the gate is of sun splintered oak
And the letters erased by the rain
‘The Slowcombe Asylum ’ they’d long ago spelt
‘For the Brainsick, Disturbed and Insane’
The cold of the air tangles up in your hair
Like a lingering tendril of panic
And the door to your skin as you venture within
Is unnervingly warm and organic
There’s a hole in the window that lets in the rain
And it’s rotted the carpet beneath
The rattle of wind through the weather-worn blinds
Hides the sound of your chattering teeth
There’s a whisper that nibbles the edge of your ear
And a shudder that skips up your sleeves
But the cry that had clung to the tip of your tongue
Is accosted before it can leave
There are pools of neglect where the shadows collect
‘Til the sunlight has faded from view
The security door is of iron and steel
But it’s broken and hanging askew..
Feb 13, 2018
Feb 13, 2018 at 10:26 PM UTC
He had not, the general consensus decreed,
Held up his end of the bargain;
Custom dictated that, once one had received
If not full absolution, a degree of dispensation
It was incumbent on the recipient
To acknowledge of the communal munificence,
Preferably with a suitably hang-dog expression,
And then move on with one’s life
In a sufficiently distant locale.
The gentleman in question had begged to differ
And stayed on, not simply long enough
To say the odd quick goodbye, to tie up loose ends,
But for the long haul, as he was born and bred in these parts,
Man and countryside one and the same,
Inextricable from one another, in his view,
And so he carried on about his business
As would befit a full citizen of the borough,
Occasionally stopping to pass the time of day
With the small circle of family and friends
Who had not found his particular peccadillo
As grounds for a de facto shunning
(Indeed, the wheres and whyfores of his particular transgression
Long past being generally agreed upon)
Continuing to shop, work, and even attend mass at St. Marinus
(Where he invariably had a pew to himself)
Where local legend had it that the statue of Jesus had once wept,
Though one former parish priest had noted
How the effigy was strangely and unnervingly impassive
Feb 28, 2019
Feb 28, 2019 at 4:02 PM UTC
Me, a monster
Arises from darkness
Yearning for understanding
Abandoned by hope
Always trying
Never enough
Giving up slowly
Even told good
Lies, all lies
Illustrated by evil artists
Caring was never enough
Always more
Mutilated by thoughts
Untouched, but in pain
Ebbing away
Lonely, and yet
Loved in every way
Ever confused
Rest in peace
Me, a monster
Awarded no honor
Yielded by darkness
Aided by madness
A demon, so evil
Named humorously, the devil
Glimpse into the depth of my mind
Ebb into the blackhole unlike any other kind
Laced with venom, words are thrown inside
Infecting all that was sublime
Chipping the good away slowly
Alluring to the insanity
Macabre disaster, savage freak, cowardly *****
Unnervingly weak
Elusive ***
Lackluster ****
Laughably impulsive
Ever repulsive
Rest in pieces
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 5:17 PM UTC