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Dirt Witch Nov 2017
You are           ...sleeping.
And I am awake.
Smoking cigarettes on porch
and the curb
and underneath the leaves of this foreign place as familiar as our bed.

(Our bed ?

Perhaps. )

As you sleep,
Breathing heavily, soundly,
contorted into dissociation
Blankets wound around your body
        -That I don't dare touch;
I breathe so slowly, so so

S
  L
    O
      W
         L
           Y

[ S
T
A
R
I
N
G
    at the wall ]

And speak to myself in the voice no one will ever hear
with the intensity of red
and the pace of INDIGO
INDIGO of the wall outside your flat
INDIGO of the sloshing acid of my stomach
INDIGO of the synapses pulsing electricity past my neurons to the unreceptive brain matter that lies beneath your skull  

Indigo indigo indigo

Ind(i•go)
(In)•digo
I•{ndigo}

(Witching hour approaches)

And I approach nothing
                      Nothing nothing nothing
Approaches me
Invades me
And I ask.               {Please}
But my eyes evade me, speaking distance
Across the span of OUR bed

¿Ours?

With the dawn virga of
pink light in the window,
The heat of your hands tenderly apologizes

And in the morning
You kiss me
Exhaling dreary carbon dioxide into my mouth
Stale alcohol meandering past our teeth,
Settling in the air between our tongues.
Catherine Edgar Aug 2010
I feel the air catch my sigh and wrap it in a breath
hollowed lungs, retching tight, sinking into death.
Around, all around, the mourners gather each to pay a due
this lifeless corpse, unreceptive it’s all compensation for you.
I kneel to break your fall but your body breaks my ghost
outside my shell, I lose my breath and wait to raise my host.
My dread grows fast as each word falls, blindly upon steel lips
your kiss dissolves into that flesh yet I feel your fingertips
comfort my hand, take the pain and wish it on to you
as my mother's child, you’d take my death and gladly keep it too.
Tears drown the skin that wrinkles hard, to crush them into rivers
your broken heart echoes so loud that walls cower in shivers.
Suffocating pain engulfs time, ignoring the space
wailing spectators outclassed by you, your never-ending grace
warms my heart or what this is now, you always made me safe and sound
as this heavy air chokes your breath I gently revolve around.
Your broken body, silent stare, somehow you’re dying too
I raise my arms to stroke your face and you feel that I’m with you,
those eyes warm up as tears draw the pain away from your shattered heart
I give my love and everything I have to ease as I depart.
You gave me a life unconditional and endless love to guide the way,
in this touch I know you sense all those words, in my ghost that I can't say
your body’s tender as you take a breath in that moment I’m right here,
the body you held was just a vessel, you feel there is nothing to fear.
No need to speak for I am you and all you ever gave
my final kiss steals a gasp but it’s ok, you laugh, be brave.
Your smile lit the way for my life and returns to ease my death
‘I love you’ sings from your lips through a trembling, difficult breath
I sing it back as I take my place on the breeze of finality
I’ll be here with you until you are ready, I knew this was to be.

*Keep the faith.
© Catherine Edgar, 2010
Amber DeLaRosa Apr 2015
"You just need one solid friend I think"
He said to me while leaving

He can't be bothered by my welled up eyes, he won't stick around for the **** to break. He is not strong enough to sit with me in the crashing waves.

"You just need one solid friend I think"
He said to me while leaving
strung up on the words just said
not wanting to be in your arms, not wanting you to touch my head
you shut down as I spoke, the frustration awoke
assuming irresponsibility, was all that I wanted to be
the images in your mind were screaming at me, unconscious me unconscious me
unreceptive to anything being stated, I just get frustrated that we ever dated
holding me to an old perception of who I was, assuming that I would be in that buzz
they started playing and we couldn't speak, you drew near and I drew angry and weak
in our frustration we couldn't help but marvel and speak, at the voices that we were there to seek
they ended, and you said, "im done being unfair," you let down, you let down, cause you simply care
my intentions aren't to hurt, but you know I'm just some dirt
baby don't abandon me when im weak on my knees and you're wanting to flee
promise you'll take care in the good and the bad, that's what you had, that's what you had
Inday Mar 2019
She wakes up with a shock, instantly feels the blood boil from her head down to her toes. Its the sound of that door.

The repetitive sound of that door slamming is a reminder of the poison in her life who seamlessly seeps into her heart continuing to infuse her mind with hate.

That door is used for a swinging entrance into her soul leaving it with touches of darkness until she simply can't understand how to love another person; how to empathize with another's time of distress. She loses touch, suffering to understand what love is.

The life who uses that door brought her into this world and smothers their existence with cold truths, lies, neglect, and stories of their past; inflicting damaging images and thoughts that cannot be unheard.

She's trying to persevere, but they persist to acknowledge their unreceptive response to her cry's for help, it destroys her light; leading her down the path where the poison starts to consume all her thoughts and distorts her rights to express herself with the constant feeling of never being heard.

You built darkness in her and every layer affects even the smallest of challenges in life but you left her with a flame of curiosity to understand what others could not even care to comprehend; she sustains her curiosity for life.
Dondaycee Nov 2017
Next lifetime just let me be,
All lost souls that noticed me,
Over killed the hope in me,
Helpful hands unnoticed, feet,
Blistering I’m growing weak.
I have questions for the runaways,
How did your feet get so strong?
Why couldn’t I tag along?
Did you leave home to be alone or vice versa, got cold and was searching for warmer days in the week?
What is life without a friend dependent on I,
Is trust nonexistent when there’s a mention of side,
Is it not selfish to love yourself before mind,
A system that houses a light linked throughout time,
“-What do you want?”
For you to love me like you love all.
Look in the mirror, what about this person,
“I’m always here, all you have to do is call”
Where’s the assertion? I’m looking for words because the ones I’m using aren’t working.
Never felt too good in crowds, because there’s folks around, and they’re always thinking,
Never felt too good or proud, when joyful sounds touch my heart before they’re leaving,
“-Loving others isn’t a bad thing, lose the fear, it’s a state of being.
Don’t hate yourself for seeing a reality that others aren’t capable of seeing.”
But, Am I dreaming?
“Do not confuse yourself, you don’t want to lose yourself for dreams are other realities, you are currently in a state of being.”
But what is being?
“To be or not to be is the question.”
… Give me clarity
“Everything is being, it’s all existing, everything existing is living.”
Is this another lesson?
“Is death to exist and not be, or to be and not exist?
That is my suggestion-”
-How can you be and not exist?
“To exist is to have objective reality, a reality that exist independent from our minds.
Consciousness construct realities through imagination in space, which is time,
So, does the world end when we die,
Or does the experience of this reality end and our consciousness move into another reality beyond the human mind?
Would the state of being then not exist after existences?”
Let me go the distance with an analogy to make sure there’s nothing I’m missing.
Is it pain to love in a world that perceive it with ignorance, or to fully understand it and not have the experience?
“A little personal but the balance is understood.”
I just needed some clarity to be reassured,
Because sometimes I’m insecure,
There’s never been a life that’s “similar”,
And I see things in my life that will occur,
Pretty lady, baby don’t you close the door,
With other opportunities of loving me more,
Arkyi, Dondaycee, keep my knees from the ground,
In times I forget to stand, and am feeling less than a man should when his woman’s aroused,
By another… that feeling’s profound.
“-Jealousy found, that energy is not allowed when there’s confusion around.”
Where’s that soothing sound that moved me in dreams,
That had me chasing angels confusing chicken with wings,
Searching for permission in missing some things,
Like the giggle or a touch that slowly faded through change,
Like that love at first sight that never made it to name,
Those “unspoken” relationships that never made it to name,
Those misunderstood moments I forgave and delayed an encounter because I couldn’t forget the feeling she gave before  pain.
Those hideaway hearts is where my shelter remained,
Because they kept the love pure when it was easy to drain.
It isn’t easy to contain let alone obtain a power source linked to the brain and refrain from allowing an equivalent vibration; being fear, creep into the domain and create a disease of insane.
“-Insanity is just as contagious as stupidity-”
-Please explain how to maintain love’s stability when hostility is blurred into a thin line.
Inhumane is humane when the word justify emerges in a reign of ignorance which solidifies the moment the sane become repetitive credited to an infection that dried the terrain of perception,
Unreceptive the brain becomes when love is trying to sustain which leads to strain that results in pain and fear burst as a supernova leading to actions in vain again and again,
Oh lord, the power of a woman.
If men could be before doing, we wouldn’t often do things we “shouldn’t”,
“It’s not a matter of wrong or right but evolving into light.”
Is it odd that I acknowledge you, voice inside my head?
“Just as odd as the words left unsaid before night.”
This solitude thing, it isn’t enough anymore, I need something new.
I learned to love myself from red to blue,
And I just reached purple, now all I see is white,
May that energy continue to heal and rise,
Frequency, continue to create shorter and steeper hills, so that I am able to write,
Documentations of this experience  discovering love that’s unforgettable,
Because self hate should never be unforgivable.
That illness is always hospitable,
The existence of love is aboriginal,
Individually being is medicinal and additional if traditional.
Through ourselves is how we connect to all, an adventure to,
Dive within thyself but too many times I forget myself.
Every time I learn to stand, I project and fall like I forget my shell,
Because it’s easier to live life as light than with the body, odd of me to dismiss my health,
Physical problems; wanting love, a senseless touch; tempted to rush a manifestation of her beside me.
That’s the biggest lie when all I need is I and the being inside me.
If this is a human experience, neglecting the body is a serious condition, mysterious as if ID.O.M and 3D have been misspelled,
Then what is hell?
“Death.”
I thought death doesn’t exist?
“It doesn’t, it’s a reality when the state of being is no longer well.”
To be… or not to be…
“That is a question of wealth.”
Melissa June Dec 2013
Into my hands the darkness falls 
I silently lurk over you 
as the shadow on your walls 
the apparition you never knew 
 
Brown eyes unveil as red 
a pleasant face turns vile
my voice consumes you're head
murders you're vexatious smile
 
I am the demon living within
entwined through your veins
binding you beneath the skin
is my blood of sinister chains
 
I stole you through unreceptive eyes 
possessed you in the night
turning your heart black, as it dies 
for a shadow to walk in the light.
MsAmendable Mar 2016
My jaw is frozen
Ice and fire creep up my numb face
Circling my eye with gentle hands
Tingling across my stiff lips
They call it 'filling,' but when I touch it
It feels invisible, empty
Unreceptive or responsive
Numb like dead feet
What a curious feeling
That numb is
I went to the dentist for my first-ever filling, and can't get over how weird the freezing feels
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2016
<>

with raggedy old words, this is how I write,
in a raggedy old navy t-shirt,
upon a ragged edged old chair,
whose splinters will soon enough,
seed themselves in poet's unreceptive,
but just asking-to-be-barbed
flesh bared

splinters asking with the phony politeness ,
in the manner of a steady, but  minor irritating
would-be-a-friend, annoyingly, but cloyingly

"am I not a poem, yet Father?"

Poet has no answer,
mixed words
deemed satisfying suitable but unusable,
unconvicted upon the hard hearted
mixed wood

poet waits for the ragged clotted cumulus
of old grey ladies shaped clouds
to dissipate

clouds shaped like the
puffed up shopping bags
that the old ladies clutch
while crossing mid-street
making the traffic play
"dodge'r the codgers"

bags fill with the odd things
that old ladies treasure,
objet d'art of empty
Oil of Olay Ole! and mindless dribble,
mementoes of completed containers
of emptied out hopes

expired coupons,
that they refuse to surrender
even under threat
by sour faced bossy
supermarket manager dictators,
who hate their lives and  
in the deepening creases
of the elderly clientele,
foresee their own fate inevitable

poet's waits for them,
these images,
these clotted bursts of sourpuss,
to depart his skin, sky's.
yes, his sky's

wits and wilts while he waits,
for he always has much to say,
of what lies above,
the unseen,
hid behind the bland uniform of  the overhanging
one-no-color sky
of blanched meh and feh crinolines

thinking to no one now,

this is how I write, this is who I am,

waiting for insight inspiration foam to form,
from the multi-variable model that predicts
with a high degree of confidence,
failure with tainted certainty,
even as clouds are shuffled along,
a new poem will pass
that haha, no one will read

but nonetheless, arguing among his several selves,
better to be more fulfilled by the emptying of himself
upon padded cell of paper, of his staining,
the piece of him now
un-chambered & un-containered
thru magma fissures, steaming & cleaning,
providing a penny's penance
for his disparate gloomy idiocies

the gray ladies always smile at him,
always so nice and gentlemanly like, that poet,
underneath his cowardly disdain,
against his pretense's  grain,
contempt for old grey ladies
with old lady odors emanating

is this who you are, is this how you write?

*with raggedy old words, that splinter our delight?
Neal Emanuelson Mar 2015
Over the river and lost in the woods
Made of fun-house mirrors built directly into ventricles
Of one heart beating through an overdose of chemicals
Thoughts drowned in the peptides of shores in the ‘waiting room’

Bygone feeling splashing all around for a lifeguard living with his guard down
His days went from providing his scarf to providing his hearth
To days in and out of compromising his mirth

He’s told “It gets better as it goes.”
He says, “It’ll be dead by tomorrow.”
They say “Come on now, life isn't filled with sorrow…”

And apparently, the dissonance is covered by a distance of another;
He’s a folly to the blood-and-water chapter
Speaking of mixing soluble matters…
The truth will often leave a bitter taste
But are the lies dissolved in accepting change?
Sometimes the words and visuals just aren't the same.

So today, he took three things out of his heart and mind
Left social phobia, some truth, but mostly lies behind
He will be the allergy to compassion and all that’s empathic
He will suffer; he will grieve; he will be pathetic
And then he will just go.

She was running through his mirrors, waiting for bandages and gauze
He was privy to the scene as his mirrors stayed intact without a flaw
Watching himself scar up the reflective measures; making transparent views of pleasure
Until one broke; exposing a familiar scene of brick, last place he etched his soul forever
And in ambition to recover, stopped her in the moment that marks a desire to discover
But he failed in ways most intricate
Wrapped by the sharpest lines of the most delicate
Sinew that warped the core of something the void could use to replace truth that were self-evident -

But… no.
He’s digressing from the path
There was no particular reason to even do the math
The numbers didn't add up to what he had previously squandered
She was fresh to a life that she may never have encountered
With him; it was just vying for affection through a virulent infection
And it was a part of her that stepped in that day, a partial fit to the display
Fresh paint on the decay

So today, he took three things out of his heart and mind
Left insecurity, rationality, and his future behind
He became a monster to dishonor and a liar to himself
He’s disgraced; he is inane; he is unwell
And then he will just go.

He has been completely unable to dissect himself and put back the pieces without a coming up short a third-party to my misery
He has been completely distrusting of those whose lives have never felt equal pain overflowing from his tragedies
He has been routinely maintaining dispositions that contradict on every semblance of a trusting word in my vicinity
He has been completely dishonest about my conditions as if they were just failed attempts at analyzing strategies

I have been the juxtaposition to every single saintly word as he chose isolation prone to my own forms of devilry
I have been the very epitome of a mask that cries behind every nonchalant smile displayed like a centerpiece
I have been an undependable source of confidence ever since he broke skin through my poetic farce of empathy
I have been completely unreceptive of every word a kind voice has ever come to lend selflessly

And he has been a ******* child without remorse and word to those that have ever cherished me

So today, I took three things out of my heart and mind
Left the hate, the damage, and instability behind
I will become a martyr that defends nothing to prove
I will be unable; I will fail; I will lose.
And then I will go.

© 2015 Neal Emanuelson

— The End —