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a day spent in shades of gray
of Havisham wedding cakes
and once untattered lace
of some eighteen-thousand yesterdays
of both ****** and present hair
and a never-again tie
"not unless you bury me in one"
Chelsea Chavez Oct 2015
in the cohort of her hands, a disorder

lost dignity wrapped in the red of need
reckless and arrogant as lilies

an abundance of periphery
wavers at the sea-black hand

of hands of time of hands

rune stones
black granite spattered in stars

a slutter of language
of words of wombs

necrotic we burst
a pause of however

a narcosis of want

meander of limbs
siphoning brine-white tide

colorless-the disorder
marquis of white shadow
on seal slick waves

and the lilies,
petal outward

and in the silence
there were unknown weeks
where the flowers foundered
other bodies

there is a form in the garden
still as clay

we reddened our mouths
and still like clay

slant of a neck untattered
partitioning cerebral sea
arcing back on itself

there was a benign negligence
in the want-of flowers of lilies

vague signs of amplitude
pachyderm and small
in the grooves of lack

malnourished, contrite hands
flushed blooms of pink paper along
pink walls-flush seas of lack

vague symbols of wood and
purulent understanding a

nest of roots
dipping towards the alkaline sea

we didn’t even begin to understand
the range of mourning
becoming us

smooth white shells of elegant
weakened at the hock
distempered by the recent winters
foundering in the vacant space
between us

I mule you
through the tapestries of my desert
and am still, here
where I don’t belong

here I am spread as an excess
as an unfortunate truth
glossed by negligent hands

anxious, with the possible morning
indistinct dwindling winter
curling pink paper
along the walls of black sea
earth-tide

small weakened arrangement of groundcover
jostling in the ferns of truth

we measured the years in numerals
as with skin, ardent and ruddy

palpable lost youth

the rare wood of mistake
loosened from sleep

in the morning we resemble damaged objects
prized for obedience
at odd angles of deformation to time

in the body, a funeral
still warm

skin and stone a slender neck of atonement
for the absence of home
Liz Devine Jan 2012
New heart
Old heart
Fused together so perfectly
The torn pieces
The frayed
All sewed and mended
But not new,
No they wouldn’t be, would they?

I am sitting here
At 9:39
At night
In the cold
Chilling silence
Of my childhood bedroom

A place of pain I forgot to abandon
And I’m feeling manic
Enraged and enticed
By foggy drunk memories
Of your soft tangly hair
In my mouth
And between my fingers

But this poem isn’t for you
My peach
My perfect pear
(but isn’t it always really
about you, my love?
Don’t you live forever
In the back of my mind?)
No
Not now, I won’t think
I can’t think
I’ll just watch the curser
Flashing curiously at the top of the page
And dwell on how unutterably
******,
my life has become

My life
With it’s twists and turns
It’s cruel little jokes
I am a punching bag for the universe
I am the teacher
The one the boys learn to be better from
Only to practice on soft
Untattered
Unbroken women

Those who can’t do
Teach
And I can’t do love.
Beautiful Ruins Dec 2016
Why did you have to come
When my heart's not done healing
From that last love
Where my heart was left reeling

I was just getting up from that fall
But here you come, teasing
With that beautiful smile
And eyes that seem to know my soul

I'm still scared
Heart clutched to my chest
I don't know if I could take that chance
To fall in love...yet again

So I'm just waiting
For you to take that first step
When you would hold your hand out
And ask me for mine

I am waiting
For when the timing is right
When I could give my heart
Unbruised and untattered

I'm still waiting
To fall in love...yet again

— The End —