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Gigi Tiji May 2015
Does my very existence not fit into your narrow idea of what a human being should be?

That you even hold a belief that my identity should have parameters truly disconcerts me.

First, I feel a reactionary urge to be sorry for not fitting into this tiny little cardboard box you've made for me.

This box you want to close up and push to the back of a dusty shelf.

This is because I'm used to being swept under the rug like a mess you don't want to see but you don't have the time for.

Then, I want to crush it beneath my feet and tear it apart.

But the mother within me caresses your hateful glare with a sorry stare.

Disappointed... worried, I gently pick it up.

With a sad smile, I begin to open it.

Carefully, with the calloused pads of my fingers, I untuck each fold you have created in order for this box to contain my soul.

With each motion, I make sure not to rip it at the seams. That would hurt.

It seems, though, this material has been handled unlovingly to begin with.

Mold has made its way into the corners, and the fibers are fraying at each corner, at every fold.

But I am patient. I will slowly but surely deconstruct each and every hateful box that has been stacked in the musty warehouse of your heart.

I will be here until all unsuspecting souls have escaped their prisons.

I will be here until I die.
But that's okay.

It gives me something to do with my hands.
Plus I enjoy the company of the liberated.

I need their help to clean this place up.
Alyssa Beddoe Aug 2012
Painting a picture
Hi there, I wanted to try something new
I would like to paint a picture in your mind
With swift brush strokes of my words as my
Paint.

Before I start take a second and shut your
Eyes and think of something that is bright and beautiful
Something that warms your head to your toes, even
Your soul.

Take a couple of deep soothing breaths in through
Your nose, sit there and focus on that feeling you have
As the cold air rushes through you, calming the
Strom inside.  Breath out now let the dragon
Fly free, let it warm your frozen hands before
We start.

Now before we start we must choose are style
Would you like to paint with big chunky paint brushes
Using all the rich colors to engulf the paper in a fire
Consuming the tiny village as the dark sky billows with the
Black smoke of people crying and pleading for help.

Or would you like to go with some colored pencils
We could draw with all the light and soft colors
Of a cool spring breeze swishing through the
Golden locks of a young ******* a swing set with
Her mommy on tow.

We could also use water paints
Make a beautiful ocean seen  ware
The water laps up the sand, leaving
Shells and sparkly glass waiting to be
Discovered by curios eyes.

I think these all sound like great ways to paint
A picture for you, but I have another idea in mind.
What if I use the swift little  brush quick on its tip
to make a human  being on the page.  The brush would
Dance over the page painting a man tall and lean man
Standing out in the wilderness with his hands folded
Over his chest making a heart shape.  

The smile on his face is so bright and cheery it made the
Birds sing a little tune. His curly locks of Carmel shaped
His face covering one of the blue crescent moon's of an eye.
His face was chiseled perfectly.

I switch to a tiny brush adding all the details to the man
Like the missing button on his untuck red and white
Checkered shirt, just like a farmer would ware.
The tiny ripped seams on the ankle of his faded jeans.

I put down my brushes crack my hands and take out the
Pencils. My hand sways and maneuvers around the page
As if there was an actual breeze moving my hand so
I draw the grass clinging to his shoes as if never to let go
Others sway more to the left looking away from the human
In fear. Blue swirls enchant the sky ruffling the blue jays
Feathers.

Behind the man the sky becomes a beautiful pink and red
The clouds get in the way of the sunset and become giant
***** of cotton candy lazily floating across the sky waiting
To be eaten by a hungry rainbow.

My markers etch out a beautiful sunset as the rays
Reach across the earth hugging the boy in warmth
From behind. I switch back and forth from pencil to marker
Adding in the details of the swishes and twirls of the flame
Coming off the ball of the sun minting in to the earth atmosphere.

To finish of the picture I go back to ware the delicate hands
Of the man make a heart shape over his chest. I take the chunky
Brush from before and make swift but bold marks
Of red, orange, purple, gold, pink, yellow, blue, green,
the colors of a  Rainbow. All inside of his hand, forming a heart.
It leaks down out spreading in to the world around him.
His soul is to big to stay trapped in his heart anymore.

As it gushes out it paints the sunshine in vibrant colors of
Warmth, and cools down the air to make a gentle breeze, which provokes
The soft grass to hug his feet, and makes the blue jay sing its beautiful
Tune and causes him to smile so deeply. Because he is free.
Vamika Sinha Oct 2015
No, I don't want to write a sonnet;
to self-lock in an octave
only clasping a rusty key
-volta-
leading to another office cubicle
efficiently labelled sestet
for its six undone quotas
waiting coolly for my
calculating.

I want to untuck my shirt, Whitman;
to unleash words to gather at seams
then tear them open
like bursting blood cells crowding
out of a wound.
I do not want to fit
flesh into a 'perfect' Barbie membrane,
let me stretch the skin taut as sheets
so I can feel the redness
and gouge underneath.

Clarity glazed the Classical sonata
opaque; staves of controlled fantasy
so imaginable, like an illogically
round orange, sliced
in concaves fat
with pulp, each ripeness methodically
connected by thin breath threads.

This is why we have madness, need it;
bless the ****** of brilliance in Beethoven
symphonies, the metallic muscling
of Ginsberg verses, electronic with strange beauty, holy
and unholy, every ****** mess
in between

The heart can't suffice
by merely inhaling
glitter; I can't dare remember the sane
pretty sighing of a Petrarchan
uttering; canned love,
a predictable malaise packaged
neatly in a bland tome, most likely
beige, with the fashionable odor
of bookish age

And so, serif-writing sweetheart
please don't ask
me to write a sonnet.

too comfortable to tuck my shirt in,
I won't touch I won't touch I won't touch
power pose
in front of the angry men
"we're not scared of you"

but they should be
she spits fire bright
from lips she wears matte dark
she's digging the perfectly manicured claws into the palms of her hand
hands that bring incredible generosity
and incredible pain
depending on how audaciously you approach her

with your alcohol-stenched breath
and a body that takes up space
but contains nothing of substance
aside from liquor of course
an empty, angry vessel of wordy slurs and slurred words

she knows they don't deserve her tears
they should feel grateful to receive even a smirk
an ounce of her attention
in this economy
with the men who untuck their shirts after a long day's work
unaware of what the women have been up to
is priceless

you can't commodify what you can't touch

they are not beds waiting for you
to lay down on
to make your lives easier
while you weigh down upon ours

her silk sheet skin
and the comfort of knowing she will be there at 2pm and 2am

this is her home
this body is an address
it is not your residence
loiterers will be fined
she will be fine

power pose
the power grows
this is your power prose
because mama,
you will be fine
for jass
KB Mar 2017
you couldn't touch the sky with your fears but roses turned white in your cold hands, did you untuck your shirt because you were tired of formality
or because the rebel in your eyes started fires in your best friends veins so often that he took the bars from the town's jail and handed them to you to re-build into your own castles, do you think you'll be barred forever that way? the tattoo on the back of your right shoulder reads, 'patience; im going to change my heart again' but the rings in your iris tell me that there is no such thing as waiting [for you] & that you've always been chasing the sun
your wrists shake with the hype that flows through your fiery blood but all you do is smile and keep driving down the desserts of arizona so the moon cant keep up
Julie Butler May 2015
I just want
coffee
and a quiet
place to sit
this ain't a song about
love
it is a list about
lips
I'm not here to sip or kiss from
just sat down to listen
the art of un-touching becomes;
that self-worth preserves wisdom

there's a windowpane's screen
covered with tiny flocks of moths
without concern of any sort
I watched you knock them all off


you watched me
untuck all my pockets
ready, you let me
*give this all up
take
marina May 2015
it feels like we have been
moving away from each other,
there is more space
between the pillows and sheets,
i am forgetting what the tips
of your fingers feel like
(even when they are on me)

slow down with me, grant
i want to breathe with you,
i want to be with you

untuck your shirt,
lay your head down,
stop running to
whatever is next,
the future is not now,
be here again, be
now again, be mine
again
so i guess i've been gone for a while
mi alma is made of pineapple fabric,
bartered in the palengkes of San José,
nothing like the silk of Manileño prep-school boys,
in their country clubs and villages with gates,
classmates whom I envied for their patrician ways,
whose diphthongs I eventually learned to emulate
as I dyed my pineapple-fabric soul with neon desires,
neon as bright as New York City lights,
and put on an invisible muzzle on my face.
but what was harder to wash away from my soul of piña
was the stench of garlicky stews we ate in San José,
so foul that even aswangs kept their distance,
'stead of ******* me out of my mother’s womb and taking me away,
throw me up deformed somewhere in the UK,
deformed like the glorified mongrels that are my cousins,
those UCL-educated mestizos, or was it LSE?
oh, maybe my life wouldn’t have been so ******* mierda,
in a corporate attire with a three-thousand pound pay!
but unfortunately, I wear my alma of pineapple fabric
masticated by the teeth of unsolicited advice,
fragrant with cathedral incense, heavy with the guilt
of having been cummed on by ersatz lovers, ‘straight’ best-friends
whom I’ve cut out of my life like overgrown fingernails,
for tripping over loose threads and undoing my soul,
oh, yes, I get lonely without my BFFs, but at least
I still have mi alma de piña, my greatest source of pride,
fragile pride as fragile fabric must be dry-cleaned monthly
at Au Beau Blanc, Gallardo Street, Makati City,
elegant but indeed makati (which is Tagalog for really really itchy)
remember: don’t you ever dare to wash me in the Machine!
or as I like to call it the Lacanian Other clothed in moreno skin,
castrative, repressive, myopic Manilense society, nope!
I will not go to spinning class with synthetic souls ever again
cannot chismis anymore about Manila scandals over brunch,
because my soul is made of pineapple fabric
and pineapple easily tears apart at the seams,
shedding its fibers behind in faraway places,
foster cities and countries with their irrevocable stains,
like those of chimichurri and malbec in Buenos Aires,
Debería haber nacido en Buenos Aires, I always like to say
‘cause it would be more chic to drown myself in Rio de Plata
than the ****** waters of ******* Manila Bay.
Pues, thank God, I didn’t, because now estoy en Spain
and of vermut ***** con aceitunas I am always inebria—
ted, waxing nostalgic for a time when these white men
would’ve scoffed to see an Indies dress,
would’ve asked my pineapple fabric soul to untuck,
scared to be stabbed by some concealed, mystical kris,
but no! don’t get me wrong! I love Mother Spain!
but I don’t think I belong here either,
nor in Buenos Aires or the United States,
nor will I belong again in any one of those seven thousand isles,
which my fingers fidget with like the rosaries I pray
to call out to the god of overseas workers,
the patron saint of the unmoored, the new cosmopolitan
oh, please help me conquer, for the sake of mi alma en pena
hecha de piña
, now ruined, stinky, sullied, stained,
help me find a street, an enclave, a hamlet, or a shore
just somewhere—a corner to feel not so out of place.
S Smoothie Sep 2021
It is not a quaint construction

Nor is it easily read

But as you enter willing by my own hand

you feel like you will fall endlessly

into the gaps,

not sure where you'll land

And if this viral way of thinking

gets in your head

And you start to feel at home here

Remember

You are always a welcome member

But like the rules of physics are twisted by unforgiving machinations

And reality also with the wielding of imagination

What is possible is

look and touch but

Do not expect you will not to be chided or derided

I reserve all my failings as your own

That's what happens

when you untuck the gray matter in here

You lose your bearings

And I'm in control

I own the red herrings

You are left senses reeling

Mental overload

You cant see who I am in the dark

You can only assume what I'm feeling

Words cannot describe

And I dont care for your descriptions here

What ever your tribe

Don't graffiti over my art.

Dont judge what's on display

You won't have to mind your manners

But you will have to find your own way

Just as you found your way in and maybe out

I never forced you to take part

I didn't try to **** or raise your doubt

I didn't ask you to sing my song

While it swims around your head

But I'm sticky like that

And I'm slippery too

I dont stay on one side or the other

And dont placate or back down

I dont think straight or bent

Here in this space I create my world

And you are just another visitor asking for rent

In a place already filled

And that's the magnificence of it

there's always more space to go around

I didn't hijack your head

I laid it out and you fed

You took it in

You made it

Poision

Or an

Antidote

I just write thoughts

and leave them lying

around as notes.
Some say careful!

Some say careless!

I say we couldn't care less if we were more careful
Travis Frank Sep 2018
Multi-coloured blocks are sprawled
Neatly across the floor where harvested kids play
With fidgety hands uncalled
To do much more than learn and pray.

Mmm…so good… peanut butter and jam
Beats cheeses and ham.
A little spring of Oros the throat does wet –
Perhaps a little too much – must go the toilet.

Enter, untuck, unzip.
Out shoots gold foam drip drip drip.
Paul Simon laughs at my harmless pecker,
His mate bursting into laughter like a lit *******.

Not knowing a thing of Cain and Abel,
I taught Paul the art of anger.
Didn’t you know? – humanity is but a fable!
Oh, come on now, don’t be a stranger.

— The End —