"wristbands" poems
red lines then white
blood and skin tight
elongated scars
freaky, right?
long sleeves on bad days
wristbands are also okay
hidden scars
but they'll never fade.
and one day you'll touch me
disgusted and queasy
two year old scars
and you'll never accept these.
-djs
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 11:11 AM UTC
Today I saw a girl
She was walking
On a residential street
She looked out of place
But I knew her face
It’s a small town
So, of course, I knew her face
Of course, I know her name
She’s the Jones girl
She’s a teenager
I don’t know what she was doing
Probably doing whatever it is
Teenagers do
On a Sunday afternoon
In a small town
Platinum white hair
Piercings up her ear
Future up in the air
Scene and emo wristbands
And a graphic tee
Probably not from Hot Topic
Because Hot Topic ain’t so hot here
Here’s the thing
She’d be the It Girl
If it weren’t for her acne
If it weren’t for her height
If it weren’t for her weight
If it weren’t for her interests
If it weren’t for her hobbies
If it weren’t for everything about her
But her name
And her age
She deserves better
I don’t like her
Not personally
But she does deserve better
She deserves the city streets
There, and only there,
Can she can be who she wants to be
And if she can’t?
Then there’s no place I want to be
Not one at all
Because I want to be
Where she,
Where we all can be,
Who we want to be
Feb 19, 2018
Feb 19, 2018 at 5:08 AM UTC
The band plays
Arms in the air while feet stomp the ground
Girls cross the dance floor like a caravan
The music still plays since I said goodbye long ago
It's the same party, different people.
Thick cigarette smoke stands still on the patio.
A glass of white wine swirled in hand with delight
The joy, the laughter, the old friends say hello
One by one with stamps or wristbands on tight
They all come eventually but some will never go
I remember this circus from long ago
With its memories and moments I so dearly hold
If you ever find the door and need a ride home
Just wait until tomorrow's sun gives enough light to see the road
Don't worry about missing the show
The band still plays
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 1:33 PM UTC
When things were good, they were
weightless.
We could stumble down the streets
at four in the morning,
wearing hickeys like tattoos
we'd be ashamed of at dawn.
Sneaking wristbands from friends
with fake IDs,
or faker ****
And if we were low on cash,
we might take turns
lifting our shirts, shifting our bras,
until a flash of something sacred
earned a free drink.
I could have been
ashamed
if gravity were working.
But we were all
weightless.
Mistakes just floated away.
Our dresses were too short, and
our dresses were too tight, and
the boys wore shirts
that were good at hiding stains.
Sometimes we didn't even need words;
we could walk into
a smokey, sticky bar
and fall in love with a boy's arms
while he fell in love
with a too-short dress
and the chance to see underneath it.
And we knew
we'd be waking up
with those hickey-tattoos.
But we didn't care, because
we were all
weightless.
The boys just floated away.
Maybe we wouldn't find any
dance-floor-love,
but that was always okay, because
we were in love
with ourselves.
Our hazy heads
whispered pretty words,
and as we burned our throats
with shots of pure love,
pretty words began to slur
into a pretty song, but we could
never remember the melody
when we awoke.
So the next night
we'd shimmy into our too-tight dresses
and start ******* down
more liquid love
until we began hearing
that pretty song again.
We half-knew our sober hearts
would never be able to recall
the tune,
but it never mattered.
We were all
weightless.
Notes just floated away.
These nights, things are
heavier.
I'll pour myself some love,
but it burns like regret now.
I don't wear any too-tight dresses
because I don't much miss
the dance floor.
I don't miss the hickeys
or the four A.M. walks.
I don't miss the shirts
being lifted and pulled.
I don't miss the smoke
flooding the bars.
But I do miss the song
that I'll never quite know.
For though I am grounded,
that tune is forever
weightless,
and the notes will just float away.
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 11:20 PM UTC
a day in the life: valedictorian at the school of hard knocks,
already committed to humdrum state university--full scholarship
she laces up her shoes, buttons her top, ever so slightly to balance
the constant feeling in the pit of her stomach
like that of a roller coaster moments before the big drop
each car horn and bird chirp plays into a miserable melody
raining down upon her withered teenage face like ashes of anxiety
burn-holes her already tattered clothes until they resemble swiss cheese
she breathes heavily.
each step is a hurdle,
each word a quarrel,
each conversation an uphill battle
every potential relationship another personal waterloo
dimples and straight teeth mask the dread coursing within her skull
just as her long sleeves and wristbands hide the things she shouldn't do
her body lackluster and tired, as if she hadn't slept for days
or maybe just worn from escaping the holes she finds herself in daily
or from her Jackson Pollock-esque arm motions when she splatters paint
because she thinks she can never paint else anything right
she opens the door with her right hand
her left hand remains in a fist, squeezing tight
her sweaty palms make holding the door a challenge
but it's best that she not let go.
Jul 3, 2015
Jul 3, 2015 at 6:07 PM UTC
~
Coverups and bikini strings
Swimming trunks and surfboards
Glow sticks and wristbands
Fireflies competing with bonfires
Beer bottles half buried in sand
Memories of those June nights
Forgotten in this bitter cold
~
Oct 30, 2018
Oct 30, 2018 at 10:11 AM UTC
The flavor of my youth
was skateboards and punk rock
heavy metal and mischief
walking through Cary town
with pockets full of change
and crushed singles
sodas in hand
and skateboards under the other arm
in the gated community we lived in
we would find the houses
where we knew the owners were away on vacation
and we took to the stairs on four wheels
to glide through the air like arrows shot from some towering bow
made of concrete and asphalt
and we went to shows in the city
dressed in the armor of wristbands, ripped jeans, and faded band shirts
drunk on our parents’ beer and skunk ****
drunk on the promise of a night open to any footfall we chose
and we jumped up and down in mosh pits
just trying to feel anything real
anything which tasted like living
we stalked from house to house cloaked in the witching hour
and pillaged our knick knacks from the garages of neighbors we never knew
padded fingertips pressing against doorbells
1...2...3…
now run
we didn’t have time for school
or the teachers trying to bring us down
but we always had time to trek through the woods with a bowl
smoking **** until we got to the mall
where we ******* around until mall security chased us out
we did not always make the greatest decisions
but I am **** glad I made them
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 4:12 PM UTC
A blood donor clinic.
The smell of all the blood in the air makes me sick.
It brings me back to the time,
where blood flowed freely down my arms;
when blood stained the wristbands that I wore,
to try to hide my pain from the rest of the world,
because I told myself I would never be as stupid as any of them.
But I was.
The smell makes me so dizzy,
the floor comes up to swallow me whole,
but I have the common sense to run.
Far away.
I run to the bathroom,
and all I can feel is the shuddering of my body
as I'm huddled in a corner;
being bombarded by images of a darker time;
images of my Crimson Decision.
I will never forget that day.
I thought I was going to give up on everything,
because everything had given up on me.
I'm glad it didn't turn out that way,
I'm glad I had the common sense to stop.
There's no way I'm letting the world have the satisfaction of seeing me like this.
But every once in a while,
I fall back into my crimson state;
where my body shudders and shakes,
and my mind falls inwards,
dragging my feelings to one central point,
where hell is begging for my soul.
A blood donor clinic.
The smell of all the blood in the air makes me sick.
I could bleed you a pint faster than that puny needle could get,
but I have the common sense,
to re-think my Crimson Decision.
Sep 14, 2011
Sep 14, 2011 at 8:47 PM UTC
We are in a taxicab with a drink hidden in the space between our legs. We are skipping through the night. We are in the line wearing wristbands. We are laughing loudly with beautiful people. We are dancing all night under electric lights with electric music and electricity in our hair. We are slipping out of dresses and into blood-warm pools. We are being kissed, we are getting high, we are getting in for free, we don't pay a thing. We have stayed up all night into the dawn, we watch the sunrise, we stand on the balcony and watch the world pass under us. We are celestial. We are goddesses. Today the city is ours. The light sparkles on our skin.
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 10:11 AM UTC
By the canal in British summer rays
Talking a lot to waste away the days
In your black leather reigns
Adolescent growing pains
You exist too loudly today, pull away from the sun
Tight starry wristbands, and you've only just begun
You've read Proust so many times, you believe it all
From the adjacent garden, you hear your Mother call
There's insects caught on the updraft
Floating away, you see the life-raft
With heavenly swans on board
Some alabaster hooting hoard
And the boys in tight vests
Run away from your pert *******
You would give chase too
Only if you caught them,
what on Earth could you do?
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 9:34 AM UTC
Hot breath, fog on the window.
Hands on the glass frame
Holding on,
Pain, shame!
A silent tear slides down rounded cheek
Leaked down from a clear blue pool of
Innocence and sincerity and strength.
Questions flying throughc clouded mind,
Emotion held with in a sigh.
Smile brightly, laugh out loud.
Sleeves pulled down, wristbands wary
Waiting for the shock and dismay
For the rejection and harsh words.
Bring on the hurt...
Emotional pain is ten times worse
Than anything else.
Muscles tense and waiting,
Yearning for redemption.
Back tight, jaws clamped.
Eyes piercing against the bland mask
That hides all.
Lips ready to quiver or
Fake words of comforting empathy.
Voice waiting for its cue
To laugh and chase away any type of doubt.
Hands, clenching and unclenching,
Showing more emotion than anything.
Finger nails digging into palms
Leaving bright red crescent marks.
Feet sluggishly sliding from destination to destination.
Will it ever stop raining?
Will the sun ever shine?
Mar 25, 2011
Mar 25, 2011 at 7:28 PM UTC
Now I beat my brow, and how.
She wrote this on her arm in the poetry workshop.
Poetry? That will never amount to apple crumble- a mumble, from a passer by.
Whose eye twinkled. Answer me. Whose eye twinkled?
It spake of the forlorn and well worn wristbands from picnics with wistful bands.
Coherent thoughts in liquorice all sorts
Amount
In the end
To noughts.
And crosses
on hot buns in the local bakery.
That one's spelt bread, b-r-e-a-d.
A whole army fed,
On the pep of a rally to charms,
Sound the warning alarms.
******** alert.
On the winding country roads,
Squishing toads
***** nilly.
What's that?
Too tired to think?
Two-tyred, so blink
“And you're there in a jiffy”
Said the giraffe,
For the laugh.
There are children there
And also, every which and where,
Boy do they stare
Unaware,
Without the slightest inkling of the remorse
That we learn to impinge in our gaze
An apology for existence,
“Just coincidence”
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 11:17 AM UTC
How do I explain
that sometimes, the night sky stops existing above my head and instead opens up like a gaping chasm in the bottom of my rib cage scraping my skin from the inside / i press my hand to my chest and for a flicker of a moment imagine ripping it open, watching inky black and Scarlett red pour out
that fear has found lodging in my larynx, trapping my words in a steel safe, my mind desperately works to puzzle out the code but it changes faster than I can input it / i raise my finger to my lips and imagine for a second what my words would look like if given physical form. blood blocks my airways and spills between the gaps of my teeth
that sadness circles around my wrists and fashions itself into a bracelet, locked and chafing, itching when the sadness grows and calling for relief/ i rub my wrists together and wear wristbands to distract the phantom feelings from the real ones. It’s doesn’t take as much imagination as it should to picture how sadness looks when I pull it out of my skin
that exhaustion sits so heavily on my mind that it’s seeped down my spine and coated every vertibre with its tar-like embrace/ for a heartbeat i picture my gasoline-covered-bones burning like a sick science project
- How can I explain that oblivion lives in my chest and fear in my throat, sadness keeps me in cuffs and exhaustion cements my skeleton
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 6:10 PM UTC
Her wrists were meant for music festival wristbands and scars
At least they weren't wounds anymore
Just memories of a girl who lived there before
Side to side; crooked
As if done carelessly
I knew her movements weren't careless
They were precise
Dancing
Boy, could she dance
Pretending her thoughts were light
Like the skirt flowing out around her
Her wrists were meant for music festival wristbands and scars
Because she knew she needed to heal
Oct 20, 2017
Oct 20, 2017 at 8:37 PM UTC
a pair of headphones with the mufflers missing
the wire that goes from said headphones to the computer
a ceramic pug in a red scarf containing tubes of paint
an ocarina that i picked up in a ghost town/tourist trap in california
a red cup for water during painting
a book called the artist's mentor
an adjustable lamp
wristbands a lover made for me
a book for savannah college of art and design featuring someone holding a large inflatable red ball on the cover
an incomplete abstract painting on canvas paper, slightly crumbled,
a box for the savannah college of art and design VR kit that they sent me
a book on writing
a book about color line and form in the visual arts
a red squishy ball inside a a fishnet containment, creating organic bulbous abscesses when squeezed
a book of poetry with a red cloth on the cover
a small packet of konpeito, a japanese sugar-based hard candy
a novelty necklace designed to resemble christmas lights, complete with glowing LEDs
a red colored pencil
a red marker
a red mechanical pencil
a gigantic anthology of american poetry i have yet to dive into
a packet of cherry jello
May 20, 2018
May 20, 2018 at 4:43 PM UTC
Candy's always first in line whatever the cause is
Doesn't much matter what it's all about
Feels it's her place to counter balance the losses
Until the truth is known or a cure is found
Candy wakes early scanning the papers
While the bluelight in the background plays local news
Finding what park or office to picket
Because all the causes gives her something to do
Wears wristbands of colors supporting others
Red, yellow, pink, green, orange, blue
Even has one that swirls like a rainbow
That she proudly wears for a gay friend or two
She likes to think that she's socially conscious
And with nature and life she is in tune
Proud of herself cause she knows she has got this
Though without a cause she'd have nothing to do
One thing Candy's learned is it's never ending
As ones taken down another is found
The way the world is we're just beginning
Lucky for Candy there will always be causes around
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 8:14 AM UTC
we are nothing.
there is no we in this world
only remnants of nothing
created by our thoughts
with the help our peers
and the substances they bring us.
the ashes on the sidewalk
the scattered bottles
the ripped off wristbands
varying in color representing
the multiple stops along the way
what we were for one moment
disappears as quickly as it appeared
only existing in our memory
we are nothing.
Jul 17, 2016
Jul 17, 2016 at 10:36 PM UTC