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(1)

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.
How the sun's poultice draws on my inflammation.

Electrifyingly-colored sherbets, scooped from the freeze
By pale girls, travel the air in scorched hands.

Why is it so quiet, what are they hiding?
I have two legs, and I move smilingly..

A sandy damper kills the vibrations;
It stretches for miles, the shrunk voices

Waving and crutchless, half their old size.
The lines of the eye, scalded by these bald surfaces,

Boomerang like anchored elastics, hurting the owner.
Is it any wonder he puts on dark glasses?

Is it any wonder he affects a black cassock?
Here he comes now, among the mackerel gatherers

Who wall up their backs against him.
They are handling the black and green lozenges like the parts of a body.

The sea, that crystallized these,
Creeps away, many-snaked, with a long hiss of distress.

                (2)

This black boot has no mercy for anybody.
Why should it, it is the hearse of a dad foot,

The high, dead, toeless foot of this priest
Who plumbs the well of his book,

The bent print bulging before him like scenery.
Obscene bikinis hid in the dunes,

******* and hips a confectioner's sugar
Of little crystals, titillating the light,

While a green pool opens its eye,
Sick with what it has swallowed----

Limbs, images, shrieks.  Behind the concrete bunkers
Two lovers unstick themselves.

O white sea-crockery,
What cupped sighs, what salt in the throat....

And the onlooker, trembling,
Drawn like a long material

Through a still virulence,
And a ****, hairy as privates.

                (3)

On the balconies of the hotel, things are glittering.
Things, things----

Tubular steel wheelchairs, aluminum crutches.
Such salt-sweetness.  Why should I walk

Beyond the breakwater, spotty with barnacles?
I am not a nurse, white and attendant,

I am not a smile.
These children are after something, with hooks and cries,

And my heart too small to bandage their terrible faults.
This is the side of a man:  his red ribs,

The nerves bursting like trees, and this is the surgeon:
One mirrory eye----

A facet of knowledge.
On a striped mattress in one room

An old man is vanishing.
There is no help in his weeping wife.

Where are the eye-stones, yellow and valuable,
And the tongue, sapphire of ash.

                (4)

A wedding-cake face in a paper frill.
How superior he is now.

It is like possessing a saint.
The nurses in their wing-caps are no longer so beautiful;

They are browning, like touched gardenias.
The bed is rolled from the wall.

This is what it is to be complete.  It is horrible.
Is he wearing pajamas or an evening suit

Under the glued sheet from which his powdery beak
Rises so whitely unbuffeted?

They propped his jaw with a book until it stiffened
And folded his hands, that were shaking:  goodbye, goodbye.

Now the washed sheets fly in the sun,
The pillow cases are sweetening.

It is a blessing, it is a blessing:
The long coffin of soap-colored oak,

The curious bearers and the raw date
Engraving itself in silver with marvelous calm.

                (5)

The gray sky lowers, the hills like a green sea
Run fold upon fold far off, concealing their hollows,

The hollows in which rock the thoughts of the wife----
Blunt, practical boats

Full of dresses and hats and china and married daughters.
In the parlor of the stone house

One curtain is flickering from the open window,
Flickering and pouring, a pitiful candle.

This is the tongue of the dead man:  remember, remember.
How far he is now, his actions

Around him like living room furniture, like a décor.
As the pallors gather----

The pallors of hands and neighborly faces,
The elate pallors of flying iris.

They are flying off into nothing:  remember us.
The empty benches of memory look over stones,

Marble facades with blue veins, and jelly-glassfuls of daffodils.
It is so beautiful up here:  it is a stopping place.

                (6)

The natural fatness of these lime leaves!----
Pollarded green *****, the trees march to church.

The voice of the priest, in thin air,
Meets the corpse at the gate,

Addressing it, while the hills roll the notes of the dead bell;
A glittler of wheat and crude earth.

What is the name of that color?----
Old blood of caked walls the sun heals,

Old blood of limb stumps, burnt hearts.
The widow with her black pocketbook and three daughters,

Necessary among the flowers,
Enfolds her lace like fine linen,

Not to be spread again.
While a sky, wormy with put-by smiles,

Passes cloud after cloud.
And the bride flowers expend a freshness,

And the soul is a bride
In a still place, and the groom is red and forgetful, he is featureless.

                (7)

Behind the glass of this car
The world purrs, shut-off and gentle.

And I am dark-suited and still, a member of the party,
Gliding up in low gear behind the cart.

And the priest is a vessel,
A tarred fabric, sorry and dull,

Following the coffin on its flowery cart like a beautiful woman,
A crest of *******, eyelids and lips

Storming the hilltop.
Then, from the barred yard, the children

Smell the melt of shoe-blacking,
Their faces turning, wordless and slow,

Their eyes opening
On a wonderful thing----

Six round black hats in the grass and a lozenge of wood,
And a naked mouth, red and awkward.

For a minute the sky pours into the hole like plasma.
There is no hope, it is given up.
Kenna Oct 2012
Clumps of red lacquered strings
twisting and wriggling

They just won't unstick
They cling together with stubborn love

Basil leaves hopelessly floating through the eternity of red sauce and garlic
Chopped up and sprinkled thoughtlessly throughout the disarray

Yet, somehow, little strands of spaghetti manage to stay together
and
I find myself
envying them
Sticky Spaghetti by Kenna McCafferty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Christy Gee Sep 2011
“Just this once,” you said.
I couldn’t wrap it around my head.
Your promise replayed and replayed:
“Those were my high school days
I’m done now
I’ll show you how
I’ll show you my grades
I promise you A’s
Oncology, psychology, Tour de France,
I wasted it last year, so now’s my chance.
I ****** up so badly
I love you so madly
I’ll prove to the world, to myself, and to you,
That with every vow I take I know I’ll come through.”

If you were so set on your integrity,
Why did you become the opposite of what you said you’d be?
Why did you say “I’ll be over at ten,”
Wait for my worried text at twelve, to which you said:
“Oh about that…yeah um, I hoped you’d forget.”

My list of why’s will always haunt me.
Why was everything you said so taunting?
Why did you always threaten to break up,
When all I needed was for you to hurry up?
30 minutes late? No worries, no big deal,
But after four hours of course I’d lose my chill.
I felt like an idiot, buns fused to the couch.
As time passed by, I became a ****** grouch.
You were out with your friends, unconcerned about me
Or the fact that you said you would be here at three.
Well, three became four, then five, six, and seven,
And you’d leave me to return to your friends at eleven.
“You’re tired of waiting for me? Keep yourself busy.
Use your creativity.
I won’t make time for you, that’s how it will be,
This is who I am, I dgaf, take me or leave.
'Good morning' and 'goodnight' are utter *******.
That’s not you and me, that’s Judy and Cliff.
You’re too **** sensitive, toughen up, be a man.”
But how can I when you always told me I can’t?

You were my *******, marijuana,
The more you’d say go away the more I’d want ya.
I got hooked to the feeling of having you around,
And now that you’re gone I always feel down.
But I slap my mouth shut before I can say,
“I miss you so dearly, oh please won’t you stay?!”
I’m an ex-addict, every time I want you back,
I remind myself you’re deceiving as a pipe full of crack.
I know you were bad to me,
but horribly addicting.


“Shut up now before I really get angry.
And when I get mad, I’m scary, trust me.”
I always shut up, I never persisted,
Because to every concern I expressed, you resisted.
I allowed you to threaten me, scared to see when
I awoke your dormant beast from within.


You had purple pants that I didn’t like,
I’d playfully say, “Don’t wear those tonight!”
One day in line at the DMV,
you reminded me my favorite shoes “are ******* disgusting.”
You always made sure to insult my attire,
But believe it or not, I’ve been told I inspire.
“Look at my two-hundred dollar French jeans,
How ****, son, I’m so ******* clean.
Now look at you in your thrift store outfit,
Compared to great me, humble you look like ****.”

I simultaneously felt like your mother
and your punching bag of a little brother.


Your words were the cookies to my Teflon-free brain,
I tried to unstick them; they drove me insane.
Hit after hit, after hit, after hit,
Your words were so spiteful,
Of my self I felt jipped.

I was the naïve fish that bit your line,
Of “You know I’m a good guy, so just stop crying.”
My tears would dry and I would feel fine,
But there was always an inkling in the back of my mind:
"This isn’t right, I don’t deserve this treatment,
I love him, I do, so why do I feel such resentment?"

You’d continue to reel me in with your words,
“I love you so much, Christy, of that I’m sure.
I love you more now than ever before.”

...


So tell me, sir, why, when I entered the door,
Just a few days after July twenty-fourth,
I opened my laptop to see on the internet
“Lu Rivas is single,”a few likes, and a comment?

Was this a joke? It had to be.
Considering just days before, you cried to me.
You cried to me? Or did you lie to me?
Which you did you expect me to believe?
The one who said “I used to do drugs,
Because of my horrible cheating first love,
I used to smoke ****
‘cause I couldn’t stand me.”
Or the one who got high two hours after,
Saying sobriety was a long-gone chapter?

The one who said “I’m gonna marry you one day,”
Or the one who said “This love **** is so ******* gay”?

The one who said, “We have all summer to hang,”
Or the one who said “Summer’s Wahb time, get over me, dang.”

The one who said “I’m gonna start training,
Doing well in school, cuddle you when it’s raining,”
Or the one who dropped classes, gave up himself,
To be with his friends and no one else?


“I love you because you’re so different”
Became “You’re too weird, you’re not liked by my friends.”

Were you the Lu who said “I’m in love with you,”
Or the one who said “That’s not true,
I have no feelings for you.”

It wasn't the fact that you liked to ****,
It was the fact that your every promise you broke.

I couldn’t believe a word you said,
My brain in a dizzied daze in my head,
Because the opposite would be acted upon;
My brain felt dead;
Constantly translating contradictory definitions
Apparently our dictionaries had opposing renditions.


“I keep you around because you care for me genuinely”
Became “Let me breathe, I don’t want you around me!
I don’t give a **** about you or your interests,
And I haven’t since day one, please understand this.”


Laziness, impatience, irresponsibility,
Every one of your problems was my liability.


You might be doing well now; I’ve no way of knowing,
But I see that your happiness keeps your smile still glowing.
Just thinking about your smile made mine grow, too.
But to you, it was an inconvenience to share a laugh or two.

I never changed who I was,
Or pleased my friends’ desires
While you slowly wanted to get higher and higher.
I wasn’t enough anymore,
Just a hassle and a bore.

I knew I was being naïve and immature,
So shame on me for believing your now-transparent words.
You were so authentic, your words were opaque.
Now I see right through them, all of them; fake.
Is fake too harsh of a word to use?
I don’t think so, I’m the one you used.
I gave you what you wanted, and at first, you did too.
But as time progressed, we weren’t one, but two.

Oh, and I must have forgotten to mention,
How you never really got over that girlfriend.
You used me to fill in the hole that she left,
Until you realized that I wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t a *****, didn’t boss you around,
She barked at you constantly and you didn’t make a sound.
But you left me the week after
You started to reconnect with her.
Just a coincidence? I highly doubt it.
You missed the girl who made you her *****.
Might I even bring up how she cheated on you,
To make you stay, should I have been unfaithful, too?

I lost you to popularity, to the glamour of high school,
You hang on by the skin of your teeth to stay cool.
Partying, not caring, big ticket items.
Days I heard stories of, I knew you weren’t over them.
"Those were the days, God that was great,
Green crack, ecstasy, alcohol poisoning."

You steered clear of the man I fell in love with,
And returned to the 16-year-old kid I felt no connection with.

"I’m gonna go back now, return to my glory,
If I do something to hurt you, I won’t say I'm sorry.
I know I was good when I met you,
But that person I was is now gone,
The clean me was so ******* boring
I will not change me for anyone.
I lost who I was, but now I am found,
Go find someone else, go fetch a rebound."


So if you hate me now, I couldn’t care less,
Just remind yourself that I gave you my best.
Family parties meant I thought you were real,
I wouldn’t have taken you if I knew you’d repeal.

You used to be so bright, so effervescent
As time went on you seemed so disconnected.
Impatient and harsh, rude and abrasive,
I couldn’t please you.
Your “love” was evasive.

You steered so clear of the you that I met,
Not leaving you is my biggest regret.
I wish we could turn the clock back and switch places,
So you could see how hard it is to feel sad with happy faces.

Because the eggs I made you were always cooked wrong,
Understanding things took me too long,
My clothes were too cheap,
My face was too different,
I wasn’t your happiness,
I was your ailment.

I need liberation from feeling so down,
To remove this heartache I wear as a crown.
But I’ll try to remove this gilded hat,
'cause you dumped me on Facebook,
And that is that.
mark john junor Oct 2014
she seems like a saint in my dark moments
as she graces me with her gentle smile
because her nomadic heart came to rest for
a butterfly's moment within my grasp
and with noble intent i heart and soul to her attentions
so she unsticks my head
with her own road of good intentions

she is tender in my wilderness
placing small acts of cataclysm in my path
to dislodge my mud filled head
and with her devices nailed to my mind
it is easier to think so i think

so with her delighted mind she tinkers
with my comfort zone
trying to find the greasy spoon
that i eat my metaphysical meals with
leaves me hungry for words
when it comes time to put pen to paper

my head full of mud
grapple with the notions of her divinity
but the weight of thinking too much
keeps me from doing freestyle take to wing
so it is me that must unstick
from her influences
and her rubber band heart
that keeps bouncing back
Grace Nottingham Feb 2014
Babushka doll, you're an acid vase
Empty as church mornings
Devoid of all feelings;

You unravel your sullen smiles,
Ill-bred and unclean.
You are not complete.

You lost your babies.
Now you're alone.
Darling, darling, darling, how does it feel?

To feel the root of brute in the stubby heel,
Your silly scarves lost in the wheel.
Just peel off the cabbage roses

Petal by Petal,
Dismember yourself.
What a laugh!

The air has asthma,
The sun gives it T.B.
Oh dearie me!

It wheezes kisses heavier than a lecher.
Saboteur of my days,
Why must you hurt what you can?

Because you hate me, hate me.
You are an acid vase full of hate.
I can see your ruddy heart like an X-ray.

Unstick yourself from me.
I don't want you,
Your scarlet lips

Lake Baikal eyes,
or Eastern European knits.
The rings shed their gold.

Knock knock,
Dead at 30.
The last twist of the knife.
N E Waters May 2013
And here I am, the chip
on your shoulder
Now tell me what shape
can this neutral face take
you to meet
your ends
make amends, rage through
over get over?

You look at me, see
last dances, smiling kisses
young romances?

Or hands not held
misunderstood--rejected
resentment for disconnect
still festering, infected?

Or perhaps kind words
dreams under
stars and secrets
and good times--
my favorite by far?

Now here's one of those faces
with something to say

I can be so much more than
a projection of your past if you
you'd let me--at least
release me from
angsts gossip

I promise I'm not your
youth come back to haunt you I'm
just trying to live my life here I
don't exist just for you
to torment you
or adore you
let me be myself please!
The chopping block's so painful and
right beside your face was
not the seat for which I'm aiming I
feel so trapped here
please release me
just ignore me
let me be a blank slate
if nothing else-- just boring
And maybe even something new
I promise not to sic my past on
you just please--oh
please
don't make me relive your nightmares
like you do

I don't want to be stuck with you
If I could I'd unstick you
Don't be stuck on me
I'd never do that to you
Snow Wolf Sep 2015
The colors of the world is bursting at the seams.
The colors of the world exploded all at once.
So many, so many.
Images and color and color and images,
Wedged behind my eyelids, stuck in my mind.
Won't move, won't budge, won't unstick.
So bright, so colorful, so many wonderful.
They've escaped my mind, they've escaped the world.
Is a retribution at hand?
A revolt, a rebellion? An army? A battle? A war?
Color and images and images and color.
Are there no revelations? Will there be even one?
They're out and about, and roaming this world.
They've escaped the world and our minds and our reality and I know we know we all know they've gone and run out and drained us and escaped us.
Sam Moore Mar 2014
103rd Street / Watts Towers

Suicide help lines posted
on signs above the train tracks
make her wonder where the
stars went make her wonder
what she’d do if
someone near her jumped

Decided she ain’t tryna
save a life, she just tryna
stay alive

Vernon

Little girl with big bright eyes,
do your troubles have a name?
Little girl your kicks are sticking
to the pavement. Do you ever watch
the planes at night?

They’ll try to tell you otherwise but
you don’t gotta unstick yourself.
In the City of Angels someone’s bound
to get caught in the smog layer.

7th Street / Metro Center

She looks for you in ****-soaked
alleys, on rusted fire escapes, behind
buildings flashing neon green crosses,
a sort of salvation — together you’re
the most perfect covenant.

Does she tell you that enough?

Pershing Square*

There’s no such thing as dreaming
here, and you get used to that.
You get used to everything.
When you’re flying over Angel’s Knoll
it’s easy to forget how far you are
from Hollywood, same city same jungle,
the only place with hundreds of stars
on the sidewalk but hardly any
in the sky.
#la
alexis Nov 2021
i return to the world from my hours long sleep, leaving my bed still tangled in the tail end of my last dream. without even a chance to unstick my lungs from my back or wipe my bleary eyes, i shuffle towards the cabinet where i keep the coffee. i always have instant coffee – it’s not fresh, but the brevity is gratifying when you’re tired. it’s still habit for me to reach for this, but i put it back because there’s something better to come if i am a little patient.

you recoiling at the thought of instant coffee was funny at first, but i began to think why i continued to drink it. i wasn’t scared of the effort, but i couldn’t be bothered so i settled for what would be easy. but that changed the first morning i saw you in my kitchen brewing it for me. i couldn’t have been more in love.

the roasted scent no longer bitter and stale but fragrant, the espresso cascading over a cup of milk, delicately diffusing with the dairy in a loving long-term marriage they have always had. paired with your morning hair and sheepish grin, i doubted whether i really needed the caffeine.

i had never known coffee to taste this ambrosial, this good. when the warmth passed my lips it lit candles in the coves of every nerve in my body. you asked me if it was good and it was perfect. you said you’d make it for me like this all the time if i wanted and i wanted your coffee only if it came with your company. it was a good deal, you said.

soon i came to expect the coffee to be made and brought to me. i was spoiled by your kindness, which spoiled itself. you left the coffee machine and some grounds and other things to make it. it was never like yours, but i assume the taste would be off now if it was.

i turn on the machine, slowly awakening as my senses suddenly remember to do their jobs. the cream and sugar melt into the cup. it’s warm enough. it’s not like it was before, it never will be.

i throw away the instant coffee container, the last remnant of how things were before you. i can live in a post-you world comforted at least that something lives with me where you left empty space to die.

you’re here and gone in a flash, like the coffee i used to drink. a slow drip will see me through it all.
Daisy King Oct 2015
The midnight tides wafted between cityblocks
and shops, rolling the wheels of each bus,
and we stood as if in an orchard
with the moon's light gently rippling on us
filtered through leaves of apple treetops.
We couldn't unstick from our heads
(or one another's) words of
the same song on repeat.
First we both caught it, then caught
ourselves out kissing. Repeat.
There is a symphony rumbling beneath my feet.
Jackie B Dec 2014
every year
is a month
that happened twelve times
every month is a week
that happened four times
every week
is a day
that happened seven times
every day is an hour
that happened twenty four
every hour
is a minute
that happened sixty times
every minute
is a second that happened.

so this second
this tiny little fleeting thing—
my dear, that’s your minute, hour, day, week, month year—
just the replay, callback, repeat buttons are a little bit stuck
so everything happens a whole bunch

but in the end its all the same

so fight
with your dear god ****** life
to make them different.
repair yourself. unstick the replay repeat callback buttons
and dont let your time be a series of play backs.
make each one a new route through the park
a new journey

to a new star
a new poem
a new sentence

lose the order of time.
you have the power to make every second different from the next

you can turn each second into an experience
a journey
a song
a rhyme
a hug
a smile
a new friend.

so dont let each year be a year

make it a scrapbook
of the world and you
a constant evolving friendship
with endless things to do.
Jenna Zito Dec 2012
Here’s my letter to you.
I hate you.
I love you.
I yearn for you.
I can’t stop thinking about you.
I draw your face on bread slices and squish them underneath my feet.
I see you in the windows of cars passing by.
I see you in the exhaustion of the wind that blows through crumpled newspapers.
I hear you in the doorknob that won’t unstick.
You are the chalk beneath my fingernails.
You are the way my coffee swirls when it burns my tongue.

You are everywhere.
I can’t undo you.
CC Oct 2014
There's a problem with my components
They're all separate and won't fit each other
I wish all my chemicals would create something original
But they refuse to mix
Like oil and water I'm unresolved
There is no solution

Open the bottles carefully
Pour a measured amount into my orifices
Try to mix them perfectly
But you added something malevolent
And now I'm all explosive
And imbalanced
Unstick the ideas
Unmix the chemicals
Let's try again
The tape, as I unstick it from its place, rips off plates of paint from our crummy, moldy walls.

My heart wrinkles a little.

I fold the tape over the corners of my collage. Lay it down over my everest-sized pile of clothes-to-trade-for-souvenirs.

I sigh.

It is quiet.

A cockroach scurries out of a shirt sleeve. I flick him lovingly off the bed. The only one to keep my house company these days.

I start pulling out notebooks, so much. So many. Too many things I collect and funnel value into.

I must decide which to take and what to leave behind in the ******* bin.

Back at school, I chuck half the pile, almost violently, into the trash and stride away. Stay there then. Have it your way.

Only a few minutes before all of this, I bragged about being ready to go home, washing my hands of this ridiculous place.

But it only just occurred to me then that by leaving Africa, I will be facing a whole new life. Like a neo-Alice, falling further down the rabbit hole. I am being sieved, strained, pressed until the juices of energetic volunteerism is squeezed dry.

I have only heard rumors, of course, but I believe that what I will be facing will be maybe even more terrifying than it is here.
Jodie-Elaine Jun 2020
If I had to say something now, in this moment of a great nonsensical sense of loss it would be that I too, can’t stop falling in love but am stuck in the 1950s, I can’t carry a tune or stand in line so there is very little hope, they said hope was the last thing in the jar, and when the lid slammed shut, we were saved from it all. That earth angel knew what she was doing, wholly like a lock of blonde hair from Doris Day, when she set the paper moon on fire, and I guess Bobby knew it too, when he dunked it underwater, hoping to send it somewhere flameless and soggy, beyond the sea. I cried into the moon, tripping over my slippers and I put my head on the bookcases’ shoulder, Paul Anka and Chubby Checker themselves couldn’t quench the tears, I was twisted you see, and I didn’t think it could be the same again. Time to put the cardboard cut-out down, the picket signs chopped to fences and I dragged my toes, I fell in love with the plastic walls, the table I built and a thick, encompassing sense of home, like a teenager in love, I don’t know why they did it but the high crooning voice of Lymon helped me unstick from the walls. Some spirit of left creativity, me and my bereftment belong together, tied when Ritchie Valens dropped us down behind the chest of drawers, I yelled to grab a hand, but it fell quietly onto the curtain pole, impaling itself. Nathaniel entered the room, came looking but answered the ringing with a “Hey, Mama” and left. I couldn’t save my own last dance, I didn’t know that I was it, it drifted and said it would meet me someplace. It said it would meet me when the air clears, it’s getting late and tonight I look something dear and washed up. I miss you so dearly, send me. I hadn’t known that that would be it, this impressive but horrific amalgamation, and I’ve been here for too long.
The screen is dark and blank, I can’t see anything past it here.
Here in this empty space where it all was.
Stream-of-consciousness poetry heavily inspired by music
Lexi Dvorak Dec 2014
Tires,
They spin faster,
And fast on the ice,
Never seeming to stop.

Your life,
Flashed right before your eyes,
Faster then the tires on the ice.

You have grown older,
Have made something of yourself,
But the ice never changed,
But the tired got off the ice.

Then the ice melted away,
Like your life slowly does,
Day after day.

It slowly happens,
But seems so quick.
Your tires soon unstick.

You life flashes,
Time to say goodbye,
Goodbye you,
Goodbye tires,
Goodbye ice.
CRH Apr 2013
sentences,
       words,
syllables,
      sounds-

unstick  your lips/ push them around.
Boaz Priestly Aug 2015
sitting on the toilet
taking a ****
because there is no nice way to
say i am emptying my body of the
garbage that i have shoved into
my gaping maw of a mouth
today
tonight
it’s dark out
but i’m not sure what time it is
everything is blurry
my eye is gummy
i can feel the staples
pulling out when i blink
in and out
they stick and unstick
a timeless rhyme
but ******
i saw the vanity scissors
through the slit in the back of the drawer
and i thought of taking them to my wrists
and throat
and thighs
and arms
wondered how sharp they would be
didn’t care what was caked on them
i just wanted to let out
this demon smoke
trapped under my skin
it tries to seep out through my mouth
but gets caught between my teeth
maybe that’s why they have a faint
greyish tinge to them
the red lining isn’t gums anymore
it is simply self hatred and destruction
and the skin of this innocent girl that
i use to floss my teeth with
because you must keep fangs razor sharp
when all you have is nubs for finger tips
and my toes are useless cuz all they
do is crack and splinter and bleed
my fingers fly across the keyboard
but not fast enough
falling behind
slipping on the trail of spilled ink
a purple and pink and red and orange
and cotton candy blue
mess running down my thighs
all i bleed now is a broken string
of i am so ******* sorry
Emily B Jul 2016
Your truck isn't stolen.  
I got it stuck in the field.
Keys are in bowl.
We will unstick it tomorrow.  
I picked a quart of blackberries.
Had to walk back in the rain

P.s.
Tyson got a new toy.
Sometimes my mind is a broken record
My thoughts stuck on repeat
I've been trying to fix it
unstick it
bring it back
to playing music
glorious symphonies
but usually it just takes time
and in that wait
I must listen
to the pain
of my yesterdays
over and over
screaming for help
and I know that that pain is over
but it is the only thing I can hear
it becomes so real
KD Burgdorff Mar 2019
In our youth
When we scraped our knees and elbows
Raw and red
We would run to our mothers
Frightened of the first taste of the attribute
That would haunt us like a shadow admist
Our grown up lives

Into the medicine cabinet she would reach
Placing soothing kisses over
our barely present wounds
Placing soft sticky Band-Aids on our scraped up limbs

It was a quick fix
Comfort and safety wrapped up into one
Paper packaged medicinal amenity
And each Band-Aid would make us yearn for more

An addiction it became so quickly
We became oversensitive to pain
One sharp tag and we went fumbling for the box
A peeling piece of skin
and the world was topsy turvy
Until it was covered and forgotten

When we finally felt
Real and jarring pain
The wrappers surrounded us
A mountain of useless snow
And all the Band-Aids would unstick
From the amount of blood seeping out of
Dagger cuts and bullet holes

And we go back to our youth
And remember when life was sweet like an August peach
And pain was something talked of movies and ghost stories
And we cry our salty tears
Begging to go back when a band aid could fix everything

And we wonder
When that power left
And this despair finally set in

The band aids unstick
And fall to the ground
Like we once did
In our youth
When we scraped our knees and elbows

Raw and red
dj mcc Jul 2019
When I was young I thought I'd lean in
And help everyone I saw.
I'd take on troubles and burdens and
Cares like a postman scooping up today's
Mail from a big blue letterbox.

But I found the metal singes my fingers and forearms
And the envelopes leave paper cuts.
My blood drops in crimson drips
On the letterhead you carefully crafted.
The stamps unstick and amble, impotent,
Down the sidewalk,
Blown away from me
On the slightest breeze.

It took me too long to learn--
Other people's troubles are their own
To pass along.
turn the page
turn the page and leave it be
let yourself let it go
I know
I keep telling myself and
I keep hearing from them
my mom and my dad
my therapist and my friends
turn the page
just one page
just one at a time
and soon enough the sheets will be clean again
I know
I know and I’m sorry
I’m trying, I am
and I know it doesn’t seem hard to turn one page
but my fingers are bitten, barren, and ******
and so dry you could use them to sand a bench
so dry that any time I try to turn a page
it’s difficult to grasp a sheet
my fingers slip off
and I never turn just one
I always skip a step and
go too far
I go too far and think I’m okay,
think I can forget
but the point of turning pages isn’t forgetting
and my journal wasn’t written neatly in pencil anyway
it wasn’t even stained permanently with sensible ink
there’s blood on my pages
mine and his and hers
and tears of course
mine running blue
his running purple
hers running black
all of them plucked from my shoulders and arms
combed from my hair where they fell
when I screamed my impermanence
retched my insufficiency
screeched  and hiccuped and sobbed my uselessness,
when my cracked lips and raw hands and broken frame
begged to not be forgiven
and all they did was nod and hug me
and cry on my shoulders and arms and hair,
cry from beautiful eyes that told me I was loved
eyes that left when I told them to leave
and stayed when I told them to stay
eyes that saw me
that knew me
that told me I had worth
that told me they loved me
that gave me everything I didn’t deserve
that were hurt by me beyond repair
but forgave me anyway
I want to do it for them
those specific pairs of eyes
so I’m trying to turn the page
I’m trying
but there’s so much blood
and it’s not all mine
and I’m trying to remember what you told me
about licking my fingers to unstick the pages
but wouldn’t you know my mouth is drier even than my hands
either from the medication or from talking too much
or maybe from not talking nearly as much as I should
but whatever the reason at least I'm trying and
I know they’re glad I’m trying
because they know there was a time when I wouldn’t have
and I’m constantly unsure whether
I’m going back there or not
back to when it was like that
when I wouldn’t have tried
sometimes I think I am
sometimes I want to
sometimes I find myself missing the familiarity
so I stop brushing my teeth again
stop eating food again
stare at my ceiling and cry silently again
think about every awful thing that ever happened
and watch as my nightmares of pink bathtubs
turn into fantasies again
but their eyes
their eyes that spilled over and told me I was loved
that forgave me
that did everything they didn’t have to
they want me here
they want me to come back to them
and I think I want that too
I want that for them
maybe even for me
so I’ll just have to keep trying
to get that page flipped
one page at a time and maybe
maybe someday bathtubs will just be for baths
I was triggered by a thing and put myself in a dangerous situation several nights ago and it stirred up a lot oh man oh man
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2021
Ever bought something you always wanted but couldn't afford....and then, when finally bought, found you really didn't actually need it?

Ever needed a cold, cold shower to ceremoniously, warm things up
...then found it left you, both.... high and dry?

Ever spontaneously warmed to a complete stranger to find yourself hopelessly mired in a compromising, sticky situation?

Ever tried to unstick that which got stuck due, entirely, to your own ****** unstick-ability?

Ever determined to run that hard, long race to bloodiwell win at any cost....then laughed and laughed with delight and utter relief, when you actually came in exhausted, spent...and last?

I have, to every ****** one of em!
M.
Mateuš Conrad May 2018
.alt. title? drunk's acrobatics, but prior to? nazis nazis nazis, my grandfather doesn't have bad memories of the soldiers clad in black coco chanel numbers occupying my town of birth... he remembers: herr! herr! bitte bonbon! and they would give him sweets so sickly that my great-grandmother would have to put his hands under the tap to unstick them... even some otto *******wasn't a bad man, he was a soldier, he probably had a wife and children... he was human: not a part of some modern cult following of a horde of mythological evil... i once mentioned the name: krupps to my grandfather, he, having worked in the metallurgy industry clearly remembers the krupp family... i mean, magnificent feats of engineering: krupp K5, schwerer gustav... the gustav? come on... compared to the soviet OTR-21 tochka? ha ha... and why prevail with the cultural significance of nazis? movies, video games... worthy opponents? i can't see them like the sort of fetish they are for the modern soviet antithesis left in the west... even in poland the youth will say: zz-top - sharp-dressed men... wehrmacht's M40 and M43 Heer uniforms... everyone can agree: the best dressed army in history... which leaves me with a fetish for the german language from time to time... i just can't help it... besides... ah... the sub-plot title... drunk's acrobatics... well, it's England, it's June, Wimbledon is in full swing, cricket: england will face off australia and lose the semi-final, india will play ne zealand and win, australia will win the world cup... but it's so hot, or so humid... come morning i either fall out of bed and continue sleeping on the cool wooden floor, or, like i did yesterday, go into the corridor and sleep on the wooden floor there... mid-dream wake up call from the heat... thinking i was still in bed about to fall onto the floor from a height of half a meter... fall: i did... from the corridor landing onto... the ******* stairs! 1.7m fall onto a ******* zig-zag of gradual elevation... and upon reaching my final destination just shy of my head being split open on the kaloryfer (radiator) i woke up just a little bit more and simply utter: o kurwa (o' kurva... oh ****)... drunk's luck... minor aches / bruises the next day... head feels a little bit wonky... like i put on a kippah to the side of my head like a bowler hat donned by jack lemmon in the apartment (1960)... like icarus / lucifer head first a-grade drunken acrobatic dive into the unknown... seemigly picked up and thrown off the landing... pure magic... clearly. again: the left is really obessing about nazis, i'm starting to suspect they have a secret fetish for the uniforms, that they want them to return... they are seemingly searching for their ******* unicorns, their mythological army of satan... while there was poor otto *******saying: bitte mein gott: ein morgen und ein weißwurst und pumpernickel für frühstück; doesn't get simpler than that.

apparently it's become pointless
stripping someone
to a pronoun,
            given the "gender neutral"
modus operandi,
  of the existentialists' "i",
ditto: being designated,
    "worthwile",
   to the confines of the maxim:
to angels - vision
of god's throne;
          to insects -
   sensual lust
...
              mind you,
   when weren't
       the emblems of,
said region,
              digested within /
by the confines
     of the ivory cavern;
limp phallus,
        dry *****...
              dry mouth
and a wet tongue...
       synonym of
            talking: a deßert;
note:
    punctuation marks
(apparently),
   are not best
synchronised with
conjunctions...
          which sounds
like a grammatical
enigma, that are not best,
   but so does **** sapiens:
which stems from
nomadic right to left,
             wise, man...
any further blah blah
and you concern yourself
with extracting
toilet paper...
        or, whether or not,
111 via the ****
    subsequently smeared
across a wall is
not the most perfect
        archetype of graffiti...
     siarka...
                sulphur is a word
with a- priori
         connotations,
    stressing the hyphen
"prefix"...
                    denoting:
without a prior example...
   an etymological cul de sac...
a dodo...
                           συλφoρ...
because disecting a word:
  συλ-                -φoρ?
                sol associated with
the spontaneity of phren?
        history is but
one narrative...
           but what became
of the hammer and the sickle,
became the tongue and scythe:
  
                  für
                       freiheit!

said a poem,
     objecting to the confines
of, paragraph,
         stating:
                     myopia, darin!
Supa Dec 2018
Go Away Love
Love, oh love, where do I start
You mislead me, you abused me
You trick me into your devilish lies
You give me a false sense of hope
Because every time I talk I feel I am getting closer
But I am actually drifting farther apart
Driving a deep wedge from our love
Why do I bother trying
Why do I ever love
A plastic heart that contributes nothing
More manipulative than the best lawyer
Because when my hopes are high
They go sinking down the drain
I can’t give up the fight
When I need to give up the fight
Fight or flight, I just wanna fly away
This game is too insane
Everyday your obsessed with the same person
Your eyes glued when you want to unglue them
Go away love
Go away every lonely night
Crying into my pillow
Thinking obsessively about them
But they won’t answer
Every moment cherish
To make an impression
But impressions won’t be enough
You know they don’t care
Despite how hard you try to forget
But you are too determined
But you just need to forget about it all
Forget about them
But love attracts to you like a magnet
Every suction sticks
When I want it to unstick
What is it so attracting?
Why do I want to come back for more?
When I know I will fail
Fall head first with no cushion
I try to go with the flow
Try to be myself
But nothing will work
Nothing will fit
The puzzle pieces won’t match
Go away love
Your worth nothing to me
You lied you cheated you played me
You used me as your punching bag
You use me as your test object
Too see how we will react
To the rejection
To the thought of failure
I am onto your ***** tricks
I know what you want to see is failure
Why do you want to see me fall
Why am I test subject
I am human too
I need love too
I don’t wanna dable and go
I desire the same affection
Yet my heart is the greatest liar
My heart is the greatest sinner
Everyday it tries to pull me in the wrong direction
Why do I have to suffer this force
I just need to let go
But I can’t let go
Everything falls down like a broken cliff
Thinking and shaking
Staring into your eyes
Awedropped
But knowing
That my goal is impossible
My standards set
And knowing I can’t meet those
When my heart tricks me I can
Is why I spend my nights
Looking at sad comics
Thinking I will be lonely forever
Mind manipulates me
Guess my mind is a sinner too
My whole body becomes Pinocchio
Lying that I can do this
That I can receive love
From someone that my heart connects too
But they don’t connect back
So I just wanna let go
“No don’t let go”
“There is always a chance”
“The odds may work out”
But they never work out
They always come back to haunt me
So let’s face reality
My love won’t love me back
So all I have to say is
Go away love
Stephanie Oct 2018
I imagine you
Wimpering
And I cringe
At your sadness
And
At my hardened
Heart

How many times
Did I hold you
Thinking that this time
You could move beyond
That you would
Find the way to
Unstick yourself

But movement never happened
You gave me words
A false life
You asked me to love you
But you wouldn’t learn
To love
Yourself
Or me (truly)
In return

And I shrank
Depleted
Lifeless
Without love
To offer

You stole from me
Calling it love
Partnership

But I was alone then
Even beside you
And now
Without me
Near
Loneliness is alive
In you
Too

3/26/18

— The End —