"unscratchable" poems
The lies
like dirt under
fingernails.
Call on your inner
Lady Macbeth
but no amount of scrubbing
can cleanse them.
They lie thick
on the tongue
tainting tastes
with blistered buds.
A thousand ants
marching on your
skin.
Unscratchable itch.
Descending into
madness.
Only truth can
set you free.
Only you can
free the truth.
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 6:49 AM UTC
He'd be more
than one page in your journal
this man, Yorkshire-born,
anthropology at Pembroke,
the one who wrote
about a fox and a song.
Piano music in the room,
British-bohemia.
You, enthralled,
wonderfully drunk
among turtle-necked boys,
friends of his
and then him,
the unscratchable diamond
you wanted bad.
'Then the worst happened.'
Earrings like tears in his palm,
two accents mixing,
new paints in a ***
Before long
he'd be chucking
clods at your window
though you wouldn't be home.
But his name would spray
from your mouth for good.
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 4:15 PM UTC
Every morning, right at dawn
this happens before I even yawn.
Day after day, day after day,
before I even wake,
before light with my eyes I take,
the same way it goes.
Over and over and over again…
It starts with this sudden rash on my skin,
like when someone is bothered with some very deep sin.
I taste of something unpleasent, sour.
If I spit it, steel I think I’d devour.
All stiff and sore,
I get up, unwillingly I’m mumbling something gore.
I look myself in the mirror,
sheet after sheet, it just gets thicker.
My eyes ****** and black,
inside them I see, a dent, a small crack.
Day after day, day after day,
while everyone sleeps,
I pity that soul that down in the crack slowly weeps.
I watch as it gets wider and wider,
that ***** that empty hollow ditch.
I see away, try to hide the disgust.
There is no place left in me, where I’d put my own trust.
There’s no border more, between reason and lust.
It was taken by some passing windy gust,
some swarmy pile of useless dust.
Vigorously I feel fire building up in me.
Hell got upstairs again, in me I see.
It burns I can feel it,
that unscratchable itch.
I stay still, I don’t move,
only with my left cheek I twitch.
Feb 13, 2015
Feb 13, 2015 at 7:22 PM UTC
You think I don’t see
The way you lean away from me,
as if my Blackness is catching.
I watch your eyes, watch your things;
Taking inventory in preparation
For
What?
I see your smile get the tiniest bit tighter,
when I park myself next yourself
and ourselves are no selves
At
All.
Yeah, I notice the way you begin to shift,
like an unscratchable itch is inching inching inching
across your skin.
Or is it just my skin?
Those whispered words between you
and your little blond-haired friend
are not as soft as you’d like to believe
But I think you already know that
and I know that you know that I know,
not like
it
matters.
And I am left to bear the brunt of your discomfort
Saying my bad, my fault, it’s on me
But it isn’t, is it?
You think I can somehow ruuuuuub my
blackness
all. over. you.
Besmirching your not-so-fair skin
(you’ve got a little something right there).
Am I condescending on your privilege,
invading on your right, not my right, to be you and not me?
Huh,
Well guess what?
You can’t catch my blackness.
It’s not a disease,
coughing and breathing and bleeding you in.
It won’t wipe off on you if I touch you (yeah I said it)
Breathe easy home girl.
Besides, I wouldn’t give it to you if you begged me
hands raised, knees bent, eyes welling, swelling, filling and spilling.
I didn’t catch my blackness. You won’t either
But maybe if you could,
you would
understand how your actions make me feel
And wouldn’t that be progress?
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 4:01 PM UTC
Conjure up prismatic realities
To pacify
The Unscratchable itch
Of want
With words doused in artifice
Fervour in the palm of hands
Brimming in fingertips
Lay awaste
The horizon gleams
With the sight of burgeoning despair
The halt of calm
Reason devouring the
The ephemeral mist of utopia
Razors edge has always cradled
And contained
The incorrigible dreamer
Saudade knocks on your door
Whispering September's forgotten promise
A spring that blooms
Palpable authenticity.
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 3:27 PM UTC
It feels like sand on my breath
Like dunes in my chest
They are silent
But they are not still
Heaving gross quarter
Leaking for most water
The unscratchable itch
Can it be denied, of which
I am left outside, neck twitch.
Hands force paint in from closed 4 seaters
Enough
Enough
It subsides
As do my words
Am i anything without my words
Would i choose words over feeling
He said, as all the dry paint dripped from the ceiling
And there was love.
Nestled in the corner
A concave attitude begged no less of what there was to offer.
And we gave and gave.
Stretched innards in closed fists
Adorned by salesman with neat.
With neat.
Withering, neat.
Forgiven heat.
Not much to give
But we must eat.
Die and let live
For the succession of wheat.
Basket bare more than their share.
While the humans are simply denied theirs.
When.
When does this part end.
Soon i hope.
As if there were something.
Something to be had.
After.
Besides the calm. When the calm let's us notice our own distaste in it.
Not that the tree trunk needed that.
That hug.
But it helped the armless. Armless.
Or was it a kiss.
The mouthless.
Something dark.
Force them to spit.
Ask them to sit.
Did that have to rhyme. Did any of this have to. Did it take away. From
Take away from.
Cultured eyed breast sore
Vultures hide crest something
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 8:53 PM UTC
Love was like,
The most intense,
Loneliness, a scab
Unscratchable, touch
So remote, unmoving,
Love was insanity,
Blue as the moon,
Dry as water, dark
As sun, love was.
Love came new
Like sorrow, like pain
Only newborns know,
Love shamed us, true
As we reached into air,
Not embracing, love hurt
Us and we cried uselessly
To none other than ourselves
In a vacant, potted room, furnished
With leftovers and dried flour crumbs,
Love was the most exquisite torment,
The most lovely delusion we shall ever
Tell to others, how time twists like us, numb
As we fade into the setting sun of a memory
Burning, light falls at daze end, into love was.
Nov 28, 2015
Nov 28, 2015 at 1:54 PM UTC
.
Love was like,
The most intense,
Loneliness, a scab
Unscratchable, touch
So remote, unmoving,
Love was insanity,
Blue as the moon,
Dry as water, dark
As sun, love was.
Love came new
Like sorrow, like pain
Only newborns know,
Love shamed us, true
As we reached into air,
Not embracing, love hurt
Us and we cried uselessly
To none other than ourselves
In a vacant, potted room, furnished
With leftovers and dried flour crumbs,
Love was the most exquisite torment,
The most lovely delusion we shall ever
Tell to others, how time twists like us, numb
As we fade into the setting sun of a memory
Burning, light falls at daze end, into love was.
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 8:11 PM UTC
We travel so far,
plagues in the jetstream,
bugs in the mainframe,
a glitch,
a worldwide *****
an unscratchable itch.
We are caught,
like an insect,
beneath a glass,
on a window,
nowhere to hide,
all for the best,
here for scrutiny,
to be examined,
under the microscope,
under the hammer,
under the glare,
and for a minute there...
I lost myself.
Aug 3, 2019
Aug 3, 2019 at 7:43 PM UTC
I want something
A sirloin steak
A piece of carrot cake
I want more than when
Not who but now how
Something more than then again
A purple drink umbrella
A creature double feature
An itch unscratchable scratched
I want something
Oct 29, 2017
Oct 29, 2017 at 12:13 AM UTC