"vitals" poems
Black surges, forges piling emotion,
Foraging, attaining such predicted erosion.
Color the rubies to a diluted amber,
Brittle, dripped gems are toxic, I clamber
To the lamp as to see my implicit devotion.
Vitals ascend, and I can't perceive
This motionless forfeit I often receive.
Aid is essential, it holds potential,
To cure this conflicted, addicted vessel.
My heart on my sleeve, I'm undeceived.
I implore to explore, as breath, I leave,
So close to dying, I'm on the eve
Of darker clothing, and flowers to family,
Hallucinate my abnormalities.
Yet somehow, I am still on my feet-
May 17, 2018
May 17, 2018 at 9:33 PM UTC
i don't
even know him.
i only recognize his vitals
rapidly diminishing on
the screen before me.
i'm wrong, this is wrong,
everything is wrong.
i'm trespassing on
vulnerability.
he knows;
he gets it --
how this place
can make you
feel like hell
without even
trying.
if belief were among
my faults, indeed
it would **** me to
scroll again
(and again)
through artificial
papyrus, through
reeds and lights
and electronics;
because every
new click
brings another
wrench.
tug at the
heartstrings;
what heartstrings?
these leave nothing behind.
because of you,
i am destroyed.
i am assimilated,
i am protein.
because of you,
i am denatured.
turn down your flame, nolan,
there isn't enough fuel
for you to burn so
brightly
for so
long.
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 1:34 AM UTC
****** Up**
Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Not seen not heard not wanted
But that's just life isnt it?
People not caring
Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Alone abused abandoned
Friends aren't there
Parents don't care
Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Dejected deserted neglected
Living a lie
Begging to die
Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Shattered crushed broken
Vitals failing
Everyone's bailing
Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Exhausted ruined drained
Hopelessness surrounds her
Life is a blur
Just a ****** up girl with a ****** up life
Not seen not heard not wanted
But that's what life is isnt it?
People not caring
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 11:10 PM UTC
It lives in Him breathes in his vitals,
Personifies him and nets out of his veins lethargy,
It dampens what his heart has in offer,
It lays in him waste,
a bewitched rower to this boat,
Who has yet to learn to stay afloat,
His obfuscations lead him sober,
His blind eye dictates his horror,
A pearl beyond imagination he has yet to attain,
To proclaim his name with no distain.
Jun 27, 2025
Jun 27, 2025 at 11:14 PM UTC
Xeroxed vitals on paperplanes
Crashing into window panes
Broken-heart blisters and voyeuristic veins
Appear and create transparent glass stains
Blue-Green grass on the other side
Laying there, our fathers died
Dreams and streams of alcohol
Run from their mouths with no control.
Shaking, breaking, no where to decompose
Skin peeling off of worn down toes.
Tell me where their love goes
Tell me where their love goes
Everything turned into gun-shy eyes
Blue-lipped Sunday surprise
Bodies breaking into waiting
This is nothing but carbon dating
Bottles breaking of ***** that's so clear
That I won't see until they're near
God and Jesus in picture frames
Suburban families with jungle brains
Broken homes and replacement Brad's
401 k's and missing ads
Finding our homes that aren't so black and white
Let us sleep in our dreams tonight
Validation through our existence
Is dead but still our resistance
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 8:21 PM UTC
Heart beating, brain waves erratic
Depending on another to prove you can be loved
Over think like a new theorem
Numbers & symbols & calculations in your head
Try to look back through all the little details you missed
Are you kidding yourself?
Seeking for honesty
Hoping it’s in your favor
Everything seems fine
When you are together
Search for a sign, an inkling
Why do I try to reach out?
Stretching so far just to feel you energy
It’s so strong
Your lips, administer the strongest of narcotics
Paralyzed with your being
When we part, temporarily of course
My vitals change
And my heart & head battle
For reassurance
You make me delusional
The scent of you more powerful than a magnetic field
As you caress my body, stroke my face
I am no longer on this planet
I float with the spirits above
And sadly it cannot be bought
Release me from this paranoia
This addiction
Why so strongly do I fall into your force field?
Is my pull less intense?
Or is it that others just possess an energy more appealing?
You are nothing to be fooled around with
A different kind of beauty not in my realm
But in a parallel
To bring you into my circle would be an extra force in itself
But the lights around you shine so bright
That I’d gladly take the fall
Use my inner being to fight for you
But when it comes back to calculations and figures
One tight hold directly on another cannot compete with various forces in multiple directions
Even superheroes only deal with one villain an episode
Release me from this intangible pull
Because my revolving fire burns too bright
for this ill-distributed chemical bonding
Jun 25, 2010
Jun 25, 2010 at 7:07 PM UTC
You are the last person I would expect
To smile with the glimmer that you have
To laugh with the excitement that you do
To talk with the clarity that you can.
They left you for dead
You watched your father die beside you
A bullet in your leg
Beats a bullet to his vitals.
Fifteen, you are but fifteen
When Daddy's telling you to play dead
They'll go away, just be quiet
He coos
So you do your best not to scream
As you lose blood like energy.
You wake up in a hospital bed
Bandages caressing your injured calf
A nurse tells you to turn on the news
As you ask where your father is.
The television set won't lie to you.
The flat screen relays the message
He's dead.
Years later, still living in the slums
That you so preciously embrace as your home
At seventeen, you're the only sibling without kids
But you have been deemed caretaker.
Yet, to total strangers of different race
Those who barely know suffering
From an affluent community, from generally "good" homes
You tell your story
And leave them with a lasting impression.
You are the spitting image of bravery, fearlessness, courage
And still,
No one's there to save you.
You are your own hero
Your driving force.
And no one will take the greatest gift you have away from you:
Joy, and the ability to grace others with the same.
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 1:21 AM UTC
We wreck havoc on one another in the name of love. We leave inoperable scars upon each others souls and leave one another strangled for air, plundered of all vitals. We call this love, and we recycle these events, these feelings onto the next person without realizing that we are generating and regenerating feeble souls, stripped of their ability to love. What a tragedy love has become.
Sep 1, 2018
Sep 1, 2018 at 6:28 PM UTC
1:12:25 9:20am nyc
Exactly, how far is it to you?
this is more than mere question,
or a rhetorical poem title discard,
consider it an interrogatory of
the first order, a debate raging
with every word successfully
affixed from brain to fingertips,
from my breathing to your heart,
how far is it exactly, pray tell me,
how these cords of words find you,
are your lips bending up in a smile,
need me a weather report, air quality,
wind gusts vitals vital to yo! estimate
how fast & conditions they’ll require survive/arrive in your eyesight well
and be friended
feed me the data, Heart Rate, Blood Pressure,
SpO2, so I’ll know what condition your
condition is in, adjust my words accordingly,
send to this distance back to me awaiting,
the necessary facts & figures to provide the finger stroke directional, do you need whispers or emboldened bold face to arouse the a spirit flagging, a shoulder shaking, a dozen red lipped chords of
kisses and sweet everthings, that do not
dissolve, dissipate or disappear instantly,
but can be stored in a Ziploc bag, refrigerated,
ready for gorging and disgorging, repeatedly,
as needed, synchronized slow or hard, fast
or soft, wet or dry. sweet or salty, savory
or a blended mixture, an adjustable concoction depending
on distance, time of day,
tell me,
the stuff that you accept
with open willingness,
or just begrudgingly
all adjustable
all shaped to
your individuality
elastic flexible
but the schedule
filling up fast
so we can mutual
squeeze into each others
empire of empty
so,
***Exactly, how far is it to you,
to where you are being***?
Jan 12, 2025
Jan 12, 2025 at 2:48 PM UTC
The gentle lines of the coarsest neck
Where the vitals fall in line,
Where breath is held so restlessly,
The first sip of chilly wine.
The shaky fingertips that graze,
Calloused, but seeking gospel
Leaving me covered in the words of
Your author and your novel.
Knobby knees that knock when
Worry scurries through your blood.
That hallow place behind
Where no one thinks to touch.
The portion of your foot that feels
The extremity of the ground.
How fast you're going will always tell
How long you stick around.
(Our souls are where we find them.)
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 11:54 PM UTC
Gilded Light's iron visage--wormhole rider...
cosmic switch breaker.
Restoring Lacyrma Christi in fell swoop...
decorated to Seventh Sun, heart of Heart's
medallion.
Distilled justice, pure in action to all its
vitals...sword sharpened by thin air.
Resounding honorary--there, anywhere--
when dark tips the balance...off with what
head before eye may blink.
A wrathful entry, a peaceful exit...there is
no Art of War but through him.
Archangel Michael, giver and taker of fear...
stores Satan's eyes in his own...to
perpetually unnerve him.
Dragonslayer to the degree dragons appear
as lush foliage all the way to Heaven,
cut down...plummeting to an entrail
darkening with sleep.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 10:29 AM UTC
Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful ***** sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate.
1.8k
Her vitals are dropping like flies
The air in the room is staler than bread
Everyone here is a critic of sorts
Amidst curtains and curtains of black, sunken eyes
Her dreams are breaking like stone
The table beside her is colder than ice
She feels love on her arm but can’t love it back
Can only see curtains of palpable bones
So meager, her breath, it drops.
Falls flat.
Jan 29, 2010
Jan 29, 2010 at 1:41 AM UTC
Friday, 1211h
A man collapses at lunch
and his vitals spin away like
marbles: pulse, breath, pallor
rolling about on the floor
out of reach of the heroes who
shout his name, flash their pagers
like the batman symbol.
Someone get a doctor in here, now.
The old Vets shuffle out of the room
comment blearily on the poor guy
I guess after the War things do not phase you the same
but perhaps they didn't notice the hue of his lips.
And then he stabilizes, and I fall apart
aghast, aback, there is still tuna sandwich in my mouth
ground by my teeth into a diamond to monument the recovery.
The gurney rolls by, I know him.
My stomach falls to Ground Floor
in relief and despair.
That's the thing about long term care
these men are clever, they teach you so well how to live
that you forget they're supposed to die.
Mar 8, 2013
Mar 8, 2013 at 5:38 PM UTC
I tried crushing each memory like a shortening cigarette, but it's easier to allow yourself to die than to forget.
I stood in front of the mirror-the wall behind me scribbled in green-and I watched myself shave the weathered, brunette hairs off my cheeks, chin, lips, and jawline that you found so attractive and wrapped your lips around like a future reunion of, "Hi. I'm sorry for goodbye. I'm glad I met you again before I thought I would die."
And, in my head, I watched you approach my lips with yours.
And, in my head, I took a step back and started to tear up.
You asked me to kiss you, in my head.
And I shook my head, in my head.
You said you were sorry and got help, in my head.
You were better, in my head.
You were healthy, in my head.
But I'm aware some things may only live and die and say goodbye in my head.
I sat on the edge of my bed, no longer in my head, watching "Good Morning, Vietnam", and I remembered where I was when I learned that Robin Williams died. I remembered poking your thigh, in Starbucks, and wondering how long it'd take you to feel my finger or if you'd try to ignore the feeling, like most feelings. Your lips were red and your pants were black and on white, were black cats. And you were afraid to ask for your coffee. And once you sipped on your coffee, you left a red stain and it still appears in my head. And I relive every thing while being dissacioiated with my current life. And every kiss is a red stain in my head. Oh, great, we're back in my head. I guess we never left.
And I remembered when I knew you were dying and leaving and when I knew you had died and left. But I drowned those memories in ***** and suffocated them with smoke, until my body collapsed and until my lungs learned the cursive in every exhale.
In my head.
In my head.
In my head.
In my head.
Here I sit in the dark, watching 80's films. Because thirty years ago, there was no you and there was no me. I imagine it was a simpler time for the both of us.
A time where we never met.
But I'm glad I met you.
A time where we never kissed.
But I'm glad I kissed you.
A time where I didn't say,
"It's okay.
It's okay and it's always going to be okay
because I love you too."
It's not okay. It's not okay. Itsnotokay.itsnotokayitsnotokayitsnotokayitsnotokay
Tomorrow I will wake up, put on a t-shirt, boxers, socks, jeans, worn out Nikes, and a beat up flannel. I'll check my pulse, as I do my vitals, and I'll take my medications. I'll look at my bank account and determine how much money it'll take to forget you and how much more I wish I had so I could help you.
Is there a simpler way of saying I love you, or should I continue writing this album?
Oct 23, 2014
Oct 23, 2014 at 2:29 AM UTC
I really have a soft spot for winter weather
It’s sweater time
It’s scarf time
It’s cuddle time…or a-little-more-than-cuddling time
And it’s sweaters and scarves indoors time because people seem determined to hide the aftermath of mouths that have overstayed their welcome
In the corners of shoulders and collarbones
Tracing tracheas to chests and lingering just out of reach of lips
And because I’ve been taught to hide these marks, I do
But if I could, I would accessorize with necklaces of purple and blue
Passionate hues that grow from teeth and tongues
Can you paint with all the colors of the
Winding veins that spindle into spirals around blood and bones and vitals
Can you decorate the blank canvas of my neck
With Rorschach tests that I’ll spend the next few days
Analyzing and decoding
Finding new shapes just for fun
And then we’ll start again with stripes and spots and splotches
Remembering that the fireworks we call cliché are interchangeable with capillaries
Bursting under layers of skin
To later be concealed under layers of cloth
And people will blush when the consistency in their color is questioned
And they’ll tug their collars higher
But I’ll always have a love for the fact that these are bruises that come from beauty
That these bodies end up damaged in the most gentle of ways
And please don’t put a negative spin on damage
Because I know of people that will spend all kinds of money for outfits that look like they’ve been through hell and back
Because distress is a style and the aesthetic is stunning
And even though people joke as they will
I’m secretly proud to wear a badge of black and blue
On the corner of my collar claiming
You Were Here
And I’ll pin one to your neckline
Signed and dated
I Was Here
And the blood that we’ve drawn to the insides of each other’s skin
Only mirrors the blush that appears on my face when I smile and think
I really am lucky to have you
And it’s sweater weather outside so these bruises will stay confined
Under the snowy scarves we’re told to keep
But I’ll admire this art as it fades through the week
Tracing over physical proof of nights that fall into the past
And scrutinizing the speed at which they do
Adoring the marks that no one else seems to
Because aftermaths confirm realities
And I could never disdain the colors that tell the world who we are to each other
And how we stay warm in the winter
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 10:13 PM UTC
I never understood the sound of a heartbeat
the relentless BA-bum, BA-bum, BA-bum
so draining and grating it makes me numb
BA-Bum, BA-bum, BA-bum
until we finally succumb
I never understood how people die of a broken heart
the break is not physical
it is not actual
it is not real
it is just how you feel
right?
I never understood why love was a two-way street
shouldn't it be a fork in the road converging
becoming one-way once we finally meet?
but that was because I only saw my side
I had know idea how our paths were going to collide
And I still never understood the sound of a heartbeat
of all the beats why two?
I never understood it
that is... until I met you
Because you were the second beat
that puzzled me for so long
You were the second beat
that kept me going strong
you were that up beat
to my favorite song
and you are the second beat
that made my heart belong
and now as a widower
I never heard that second beat
a murmur it had become,
until I saw her again
on the day of my death
went the Vitals screen went
BA....BA.... BA.... buuuuummm
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 10:18 AM UTC
You were my star amongst the stars, my own solar system inside my eyes.
Hand you the knife and I'll let you cut out my insides,
create the universe from my cells so I can be so absorbed in you
I am no longer myself.
Let me be what you want.
I know that I am faded
but if you let me
I will chain myself to the insides of your ribcage
protect your heart, because we both know all it controls is the rate
at which your blood flows,
and all it has ever known
is to push everything it has ever met away,
so it is a constant but with nothing of its own
I guess that's the biggest break.
Show me importance the same way I used to see it
I wanna know every single one of your secrets,
watch your eyes flicker on the train
as you lose yourself to back gardens and brick built barriers,
letting yourself inside the subtleties of a strangers life.
Leave your bad days on my pillow love
and I will never make the effort to wake up.
I will swallow your pictures whole
with no attempt to understand your charity shop bags
full of yesterday's thrown out dreams.
Punch me with your closed fist
and I will pretend it is your beating heart
they are the same shape, someone told me once,
I can think of nothing better than the embrace of your vitals and veins,
staple them to my chest so I can store the pain inside myself for future reference.
I can still remember the way your voice tasted those nights,
I counted each one of your heartbeats against my chest every evening we slept
to check you were still breathing,
that's how bad I wanted you to stay,
my hands lying inside your make believe
that you were feeding me,
I never knew what it was what I wanted from you,
and I never understood the languages you spoke in,
But I used to wish on those nights
that I was deep and dark and mysterious like the oceans
we both know you'd love to swim in
and I'd never have the courage to join you in.
Maybe if the things you had told me hadn't have been
as vast as that same ocean,
I wouldn't be trying to pick between pieces of broken glass,
trying to slice out the things which beat around inside my pulse
whenever I think about you.
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 9:09 AM UTC
Hanging from your words
Like Jon Wayne Gacy
Over the concrete slabs of Babylon.
The women and children gather in the square
To celebrate the suicide of a totalitarian.
We've seen it before, but this time
In your arms
It will never repeat.
Endtimes. Nagasaki.
Why can't we lie here until paralyzed?
Let's just stay here until it's televised
As a sit-down strike against stars undefined
Communism capitalized, now I can die.
Living is over-rated
I want to get lost
In your chest.
I want nothing more than
To be crushed
Slowly
By the force of your thighs.
Lost in the raspberry tinge of a sigh
Swimming til drowning, til choking alive
Treading blood limply, floating inside
Dead in the river of your bloodstream.
Taken by rapids
To disintegrate
In your eyes.
Aug 10, 2010
Aug 10, 2010 at 12:01 PM UTC
Unable to connect to others, I feel I'm always peering in
With envious eyes, I observe their lives, and wonder when mine will begin
The insidious illness that creeps into my soul, isn't easily diagnosed
It's hard to explain, to a real living being, what it's like to be a ghost
The doctors check my vitals and say "Umm, you look just fine"
If only that blood pressure cuff could read my ******** mind
All the pills in the world don't seem to help, and instead just make it worse
I wish I could feel, something that's real, besides my mother's curse
Unable to relate to others, I feel I'm always on the outside
So I breathe on the glass and use my bony hand to scribble,
I am alive
Jan 18, 2018
Jan 18, 2018 at 6:48 PM UTC
Crept in the surgeon from the ashen winds
Peaceful, baleful autumn fire
A descent climbing ever higher.
A special case to him it seemed, starched white
His breathy steam corroborated.
The nurses rush ‘tween bed and **** checking
Vitals of lacking that but the enigma
Curiouser and, oh, the blank screen displayed it.
There, as sight, the network of bones, all disposed
To their center, by blood and vein, all there through.
What caught the eye, a screaming white blot
In the thick of his bare cavity
A cold urn, well wrought
Had in its mouth a thousand streaming shards
Burning, pumping all the same by some miracle
That rigid effaced youth and flesh
Taking its gestalt’s place.
A nurse approach in ample fit to begin,
Crack his stern starch baritone, there he burst
Take him away; nothing is wrong
Amateur at best, irreclaimable at worst.
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 12:46 AM UTC
Can this be the time once more
Of utter giving up of our control
The simple folliwing of commercial madness
Our desire for the day when food and wine
Have to be gathered about us like the defences of yore
Headlong we run from mid-summer until
We are exhausted in body, spirit or credit
The desperate worry of what to buy whom
Or when to order the especially fattened bird for your table
The ridiculous overspending on presents
When time could be the finest present you could give
Yule tide is a special period for Druids and all pagans alike,
The wonder of simplicity of reflection of our past year
The elements of sleep as mother earth regenerates herself
Resting often under the warmth of a blanket of snow
Gathering of families and loved ones
Blessings of the solstice as the wheel of the year turns
Once more into the light as the sun begins it's journey
Returning to the northern hemisphere
Our birds and native animals preparing for the winter
Storing their food, digging deep as they look for vitals
Likewise the land is resting,
The soil teems with dormant life, every insect and worm
Every root, form and bulb
Slowing right down as the degrees fall to freezing
The frosty and rime ridden mornings giving the flora
A lift of white dusting and sparkling light reflecting
The weak, beautiful winter sun
Heaves itself onto the low glancing position
Just making it to the tree tops before retiring once more to sleep
Leaving glorious swathes of orange and red
Painting the sky as it falls and rises.
Yule tide comes as all seasons, times and periods
But once a year in our short lives
The earthy sounds, the images and emotion
The smell of the newly fallen snow and woodsmoke
The foraging birds and squirrels
The warbling and tuneful song of the blackbird
And the tut tut of Mr Robin resplendent in his
Bright red waistcoat bobbing around in the crisp frost
Our lifetime of Yules is a wonder to enjoy,
I know as I look from my window where my heart is
As the distant tree bare in it's winter shroud speaks
To me as a friend and anchor within this beautiful planet.
Dec 17, 2017
Dec 17, 2017 at 5:22 AM UTC
565
One Anguish—in a Crowd—
A Minor thing—it sounds—
And yet, unto the single Doe
Attempted of the Hounds
’Tis Terror as consummate
As Legions of Alarm
Did leap, full flanked, upon the Host—
’Tis Units—make the Swarm—
A Small Leech—on the Vitals—
The sliver, in the Lung—
The **** out—of an Artery—
Are scarce accounted—Harms—
Yet might—by relation
To that Repealless thing—
A Being—impotent to end—
When once it has begun—
1.4k
I need a vacation.
Maybe a trip to Italy.
I gotta revitalize.
Maybe, Pompeii.
I am feeling starved of my vim and vigor.
My words are lukewarm.
There is only one option:
rekindling my virility.
I could vivify myself vicariously:
the sensuality of the city's verve,
all the daily livings of people,
venerated in an intense blaze;
might make me vivacious again.
Input daily routine.
Output socially valued norms.
My vivid, vermillion passion
has been layered with ashes.
I am desperate for veracity.
Did my igneous, poetic life temper
to an obsidian verse?
The beat in my heart
has felt industrialized,
monotonous,
a steady assembly line of chaste gray;
a vexing variance of my vitals.
Revive me: my virtuosity
will ventilate me with
venereal voraciousness.
What is left to me,
a choice of perspective:
a plunge in to the devouring,
a dive in to the radiant;
both, a swim through a viscous sea of wildfire
in Mount Vesuvius.
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 5:45 PM UTC