ShopDreamUp AI ArtDreamUp
Deviation Actions
Literature Text
cock it
april 23 2008
“bye mom. i love you so much, i swear
i’ll be home soon.”
“please, you’re only eighteen, you have your
whole life ahead of you, please
don’t throw it away.”
“i’m going, mom. i’m going overseas
but i swear i’ll be back before you
miss me. love you!”
aim it.
now
most nights he shakes himself awake
with the vision of bombs and fire and bullets
still imprinted on his eyelids.
he doesn’t know what to call them.
the dreams, i mean.
what do you call bad dreams when
you’ve already lived the nightmare?
his therapist says his problem
is he thinks he’s not normal, that he doesn’t fit,
that he’s a special kind of monster.
she tells him that the key is figuring out the ways
that he’s the same.
so when he’s alone, or worried or stressed
or tired or hurt or wishing he were dead,
he traces over his collarbone and says
clavicle. down his arm and says humerus,
says ulna, says one, two, skip a few, nine, ten phalanges
at night he traces words into her back.
“what do you write?” she asks him once over microwaved coffee.
nothing, he says, secrets.
“you could just tell me them instead.”
some things aren’t supposed to be said out loud.
he remembers running down hills,
away from people.
now he feels like he’s falling
or flying or both.
he can’t pinpoint the last time he’s been okay,
just like he can’t pinpoint the first time he heard a gunshot.
his mind is a caved-in maze,
bleeding from the inside out,
body set on self-destruct.
and he sticks the gun in his mouth
and he clicks the metal against his teeth,
once for every life he took
and he pulls the trigger
for the ones he wasn’t able to save.
pull the trigger.
they bury him in a suit two sizes too small—
the one he wore to granmama’s funeral when he was seventeen.
it was the only one he had.
he had told her, “when we get married,
i can just wear my brother’s.”
in the coffin, his sleeve cuffs hang tight around his forearms.
you don’t need suits in wars.
there is nothing to remember him by—
everything and everyone who loved him
is either dead or pushed away.
the only two documents that prove his existence
is the release from service form—confused, risk to the team
ptsd, ptsd, ptsd, ptsd
and the medical examination after his death—
well, hank, it looks like he blew his own face off.
messy clean up there. kids these days….
there are lots of ways to die in a war.
bullets, bombs, bleeding out,
sticking the gun in your own mouth
and pulling the trigger. if you make it home,
there’s only one way to die:
gratefully.
april 23 2008
“bye mom. i love you so much, i swear
i’ll be home soon.”
“please, you’re only eighteen, you have your
whole life ahead of you, please
don’t throw it away.”
“i’m going, mom. i’m going overseas
but i swear i’ll be back before you
miss me. love you!”
aim it.
now
most nights he shakes himself awake
with the vision of bombs and fire and bullets
still imprinted on his eyelids.
he doesn’t know what to call them.
the dreams, i mean.
what do you call bad dreams when
you’ve already lived the nightmare?
his therapist says his problem
is he thinks he’s not normal, that he doesn’t fit,
that he’s a special kind of monster.
she tells him that the key is figuring out the ways
that he’s the same.
so when he’s alone, or worried or stressed
or tired or hurt or wishing he were dead,
he traces over his collarbone and says
clavicle. down his arm and says humerus,
says ulna, says one, two, skip a few, nine, ten phalanges
at night he traces words into her back.
“what do you write?” she asks him once over microwaved coffee.
nothing, he says, secrets.
“you could just tell me them instead.”
some things aren’t supposed to be said out loud.
he remembers running down hills,
away from people.
now he feels like he’s falling
or flying or both.
he can’t pinpoint the last time he’s been okay,
just like he can’t pinpoint the first time he heard a gunshot.
his mind is a caved-in maze,
bleeding from the inside out,
body set on self-destruct.
and he sticks the gun in his mouth
and he clicks the metal against his teeth,
once for every life he took
and he pulls the trigger
for the ones he wasn’t able to save.
pull the trigger.
they bury him in a suit two sizes too small—
the one he wore to granmama’s funeral when he was seventeen.
it was the only one he had.
he had told her, “when we get married,
i can just wear my brother’s.”
in the coffin, his sleeve cuffs hang tight around his forearms.
you don’t need suits in wars.
there is nothing to remember him by—
everything and everyone who loved him
is either dead or pushed away.
the only two documents that prove his existence
is the release from service form—confused, risk to the team
ptsd, ptsd, ptsd, ptsd
and the medical examination after his death—
well, hank, it looks like he blew his own face off.
messy clean up there. kids these days….
there are lots of ways to die in a war.
bullets, bombs, bleeding out,
sticking the gun in your own mouth
and pulling the trigger. if you make it home,
there’s only one way to die:
gratefully.
Literature
boys with bird names cant actually fly.
i fill my lungs with blackberries
& nicotine because it is the only way
I can stomach the taste.
a phoenix told me once
that he could teach me
how to burn properly,
as if scolding
had preferences
[ like the intercostal
spaces of a ribcaged
embrace. ]
he fell in love
with my words
first,
before he knew
the height of my
cheekbones
or the annoying
sound of my laugh.
he said he could count
all my scars on one hand-
even the ones that wake me
at 3 am with an itch i swear
begs me to rip them open
again.
& i told him he could keep
his pretty words and fiery fingers
creatively away from me.
i am tired of smelling of hell
& as
Literature
let's pretend this never happened
because honestly,
i don't know you and this was
just a big mistake, she says
very softly.
the morning sun peeks in
through the curtain as she pulls
on yesterday's shirt and i catch
my last glimpse of her thin
shoulder blades, protruding like
wings about to burst out of their
seams. she won't look at me.
the floor creaks with her weight
as she gathers her things. i've
already forgotten her eyes, wide
with wonder, and her lips, her
slender jawbone. i wish she
would turn around. i try to speak,
but words don't come.
her bare feet pad across the
room and she pauses in the doorway,
head turned to the side, as if listening,
perhaps to my h
Literature
ellipsis
she goes to sleep
clawing at her chest with pinpoint accuracy
for an emptiness she can’t describe,
but hates all the same. tomorrow
she will write a letter: “dear boy,
i always wanted to be somebody’s
flowery poem, but the verses carved in my arms
are riddled with ugly clichés. & you are why
i don’t sleep through the night. if
we were a language, i was the
subordinating conjunction, you were
the punctuation.
i remember you in staccato
conclusions, solemn absences
of goodbye”
Suggested Collections
Featured in Groups
title based off the title "all dogs go to heaven"
poem based off of nothing. i know nothing about what i wrote about, i just wanted to write a poem about ptsd. this poem is too long in places and doesn't really make sense, but. i wanted to try. sorry.
the poem dividers are the steps of shooting a gun simplified by a lot
poem based off of nothing. i know nothing about what i wrote about, i just wanted to write a poem about ptsd. this poem is too long in places and doesn't really make sense, but. i wanted to try. sorry.
the poem dividers are the steps of shooting a gun simplified by a lot
© 2013 - 2024 MisfitableGrae
Comments14
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
I know, this poem is based off nothing. But I just have to know, was that 4/23 date inspired by anything? (Don't ask why, I just wanna know)