[x]

lukewarmshe had the kind of voice
that seemed to be stuck
in the hour of four o'clock
in the morning - soft
and tired and luring,
mumbling her way through
subways and tunnel lights
all pale yellow with noise.

there was tea and long baths
and longer absences,
hiccups of breath
the best
she could do.
long springs and
longer falls,
one equinox to the next
and still the bad
was never that bad
and the good
was never that
good,
and she continues to hum
the birds continue to sing
the apples continue to
grow and
sour and
fall,

and bury themselves
again.

you break it, you buy it.1. someone came up to me the other day, and told me
that if i didn't start using capital letters in my poems,
she wouldn't read any more of them.
i just told her in a quiet voice that i was tired of screaming
at people who would never listen.

the thing with me is that i always
read too much into things-
people, newspapers, fucks, metaphors.
and usually i fall in love with things that
could never love me back.

2. i destroy the things that mean
the most to me, and i've never gotten the hang
of writing in stanzas.

most days i walk around reciting numbers
and other people's poetry, but usually
i just count the seconds i spend falli

half-priced whoremaybe in fifty years,
she thinks,
she will stop feeling his finger-shaped bruises
on her hips and arms.
stop hearing his words—you think you can stop me, little girl?—
in every passing "are you okay?".
stop feeling the wind like a ghost of his acid breath
on the back of her neck
beautiful, beautiful, beautiful little girl.

maybe fifty thousand dove soap bars later
and too many scalding showers
and dusty baby blankets and days spent lying in bed,
looking up at the water stained ceiling,
will be enough to leave the man
on the corner of anderson street and rosa parks avenue
right where she never wanted to find him.

just ask her,

count to infinity before you sleep.cause i know
there are days when
it's painful to even breathe,
your throat closing up on the knowledge
that you don't know
how much longer you'll be waiting on this
band-aided, superglued planet.

every cell in your body vying to be the next to die,
and all you have to tell them is
maybe. maybe next time.

those are the days you spend
cutting rose thorns into your palms
and clenching your fists tight around
jagged reflections and prismed rainbows.
the days you realize
we're losing so much faster than we're learning.
we're maturing faster than we're growing.
adults stuck in the bodies of kids,
moving around, making the mistake

The Jailori.

the room smelled of paint and chocolate;
a stain that won’t wash out no matter how vigorously you grate,
no matter how deeply you peel.

ii.

“Mothers never cry when their boys run towards large army tanks, and fishermen never weep when they return home with nothing.” These were my forced whispers in her ear.

iii.

ticking antiques and wooden furnishing,
a land flowing with silk and money.
it was no consolation.
pain still trickled through.

iv.

I told her that I don’t kiss women on the mouth, and by day I left her to her own thoughts. That’s when she finally listened and stopped her c

Isaiahdid you hope with me, Isaiah?
or did I merely dream the days of our stand;
of red strings, of stardust,
of too-small hands & too-long hair,

& of the words, the words, the words

(the ones you had me
believe you were worth)

for it was you who said,
"go big or go home.
I will give you the world,
or nothing at all.

this, I promise to you."

so dear to me, the vowels & the verbs,
the air hissing through
your teeth: gateways
to a barren land

words

like wind through the trees,
like ghosts through the tombstones.

have you left me, Isaiah?
I travel north & farther north, still,
for humans do, subconsciously,
gravitate homeward.
b

why we cannot sleep at night.i.
we have grown so accustomed
to wearing our masks
and yet
we still wonder why
we feel
so
alone.

ii.
the night sky
is calling my name
and i find that
i cannot close my eyes
because
my corneas are stars
and i'm falling
like coins-
rusted and fading,
forever switching owners
forever out of place

iii.
(sometimes
i think,
loneliness is a disease
and
the world is infected.)

ways i have been worni. mists
like a vapor.

a wisp about a finger
flexed

missized
missteps

and exhaled
like cosmic debts.
ii. plains
like a drought.

the rush for everpresent
shade

unstable
unmade

the silence
of desperate haste.
iii. seas
like a flood.

a tide without a valid
crest

obtuse
obsessed

the collapse
of a crush immense.
iv. snows
like the first.

a taste of infinity's
breadth

unsure
unsaid

and betrayed
by a depth unmet.
v. universes
like the vast.

the promise of intertwined
rest

imbued
impressed

a design
beyond history's test.

catch the stars to remember her wishesi.
she rememberes the little things first.
her favorite color is purple
she likes blueberry pancakes,
and leaves pennies face-up on random street corners.
even with these pieces, it feels like
a huge chunk has been torn away that she could never retrieve

ii.
there are scars on her person
she does not remember getting.
her body is a map of memories
she does not know how to read.

iii.
they say she used to be calm and collected,
but now she is hot and fiery,
and they don't know her anymore.
but that's okay, because she doesn't know herself.

iv.
she misses the sun,
and the bad school coffee and English projects
and her own b

a hospital bird with soot in her lungsshe slept through a car crash
that almost killed her,
through whitewhite walls
and dreams
where her lover dies
nobody thought she'd make it
but she woke up a few months later
with flowers in her hair
and ash in her airway
trying to remember how to start all over
but forgetting to remember how to live.
fall slipped from her open eyes
and winter crawled in for a long hibernation
of not-quite-cold-enough-for-snow
to her the clouds looked sick
and pale like they might
let everything inside them out,
but she opened up wide instead,
spilling blood where there was none to be spilled.
her heart slipped down the street
and with unsteady hands
she stitched in a bird and cut off its wings.

overflowi tried to show you
all the broken bones
in the cupboard

all the cobwebs
underneath the staircase

all the schisms
and chasms
and chinks in my
a(r)mour

but
your finger touched my lips
in a curious sort of way
and you said
shh, darling,
don't say a word

none of that matters
anymore

so i tried
to shut away the
ghosts
but now they're out
and about
and coming for me

and i can't escape them
with my heart so chipped
and faded.

criss-crossed veins for the trigger girliii.
"you're not okay."
"I'm fine."
"no, you're lying. i can tell. everyone has a trigger."
"What's mine?"
"you smile."

ix.
she's walking around in circles
and trying to pick up her broken pieces, but they're
not fitting like they used to,
something's damaged beyond repair.

v.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?"
"because i've forgotten what it feels like to heal."

viii.
she regrets not cutting deeper, when she sees the life
still running through her veins, and her parents asleep
on the hospital chairs.

ii.
she comes to school the next day with a bandaged hand
and blue eyes that seem a bit dimmer.
"i broke a mirror."
an

they can't be takentheir bleach skin caught my eye
albino white against the wild
hair like bright sky electric in the briars

haloed sister gods shot down like fawn

Audreydear girl i sit by in english

this is for you.
this is for you because you are
the dreamer of impossible dreams, and the
doer of improbable things.

this is for you, because
you balance on two legs when your life
is spinning out of control
and poetry will always confuse you.

you love fudge brownies like you love
every single guy you like.
for so long, the only thing i knew about you
was the fact that you liked reptiles in second grade.

this is for you, because
you walk around swim meets without pants
and brush your hair in the bathroom before lunch.
you're a mess of contradictions and the most
securest insecure person i have e

Humanityi. Creator

Flicking through yellowed pages,
The crinkles smelling of dust and tears.

A human-induced God complex - authorial authority.

ii. Photographer

At parties, she hides behind her camera, just so
Someone gives her a smile once in a while.

Too bad she only sneaks candid photos.

iii. Conspirator

Vindictive whispers cloy behind closed
Hands and hardened hearts. They vent.

An immunity to gossip; a cathartic release.

iv. Voyeur

Peeping toms on laptop screens and
DVDs - it's only natural, apparently.

What is normal anyway?

Browse More Like This

Download File
HTML, 2.4 KB more ▶

More from ~MisfitableGrae

taller people, shorter expectations
i.
she thinks that if her heart
were any bigger, all her blood would pool
at the bottom and drown out the pictures
of Mark
she's been too heartbroken exhausted to throw out.
and she thinks that maybe then when she makes
pretty words in her skin,
it'd make the mess a lot easier to clean up.
she's practical like that.

ii.
sometimes she gets lost in the sky
and calls it the ocean, because whenever
she looks at the clouds, she always sees
seahorses and pollution.
if she wishes any harder, her star will implode
please god, make me beautiful.

iii.
when she was young, she ued to think that
infinity was eight years, because if s

lights like it's godshe wants her veins to be bigger
so they can hug the room when it starts spinning.
she wants a time machine and more storms.
she doesn't want an 'It's Gonna Be Okay'.
she wants an end.

except i'm not sure i know what you
want anymore, sister.
i think you want to sleep it away.
i think you want to stop the yelling.

i surrounded our old childhood playground
with real world problems, sister.
then doused it in too-expensive gasoline
and lit the whole damn thing on fire
so no one can touch those ours my memories.

is that what you want?

memories from the days when your problems were
so simple you didn't need a knife or needle to so

the most honest poem i've ever writtenI keep a bible by my bed and tell myself
One day, I'll read it.

I'm that jigsaw puzzle your grandmother gives you
That you never really wanted.
I'm a shipwreck you just know will happen, and yet
You're still standing on the shore, waving
Good-bye to your loved ones.

I like rain and you and breathing
And only one of those is optional.
I think horrible things are funny,
and cry when I lose something I thought
I'd have forever.

For what it's worth, I can't
Imagine next year without you
And I've always wanted a friend with ground eyes
'Cause I've spent too long in the sky,
I'm sick of 'flying'.

If I had a god, I'd call her Mom.

things i'll tell her somedayher eyes are still closed
when i meet my daughter for the first time.
she's pressed against my stomach
unknowingly touching
2, 4, 6, 8, 10 scars.
she's scradled with spray-tanned wrists that
don't really hide the complete truth.
i think of laughing- how could something so
ugly hold something so beautiful?
but i just clutch her closer and promise
that the same things will not happen to her.

in a world that will treat her wrong,
i swear i will raise her right.

i will form her hand into the shape of a gun,
just so i can show her the peace sign.
i'll teach how to forget to breathe,
but only for things she thinks are worth it-
lik

Beautiful SkeletonWhen I grow up, I'm going to plant
Dandelion seeds in front of my house.
I know they're weeds; I don't care.
I'm tired of the beautiful.

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall,
Who's the thinnest fairest of them all?
She can count her ribs, she's almost dead
And yet she's still fat inside her head.

Did you know there's enough spray-tan in America to
Paint the snow in Alaska a mile deep?
Did you know that the lip-stick in California alone
Could cover the Hollywood Walk of Fame with the word 'ugly'- twice?

I'm sick of saying 'beautiful'
And 'ugly' is the harshest four-letter word I know.
If I hear 'starved' one more time, I'm going to throw

iktsuarpoki.
The mug's still warm in my hand, with imprints
Of two pairs of lips on either side.
I look down at the hot chocolate and think of your eyes.
Brok-broke-broken.
I toy with the idea of throwing the cheap San Fran mug at the wall-
Play with the idea of dropping it on the stone floor- But that
Wouldn't bring you back.
Nothing will,
And hot chocolate is as hard to get out of the carpet as blood is,
And heaven knows if you taught me one thing it was to be practical.
(And that love does not exist,
And that I'm a B- student, not a princess,
And that nothing's prettier than a kicked over dandelion.)

ii.
I threw away the book you gave

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

#poetry-book

#Live-Love-Write
Literature Lovers

#PoetsandWriters
Authors of all things Lit.

#The-Poetry-Cafe
Poetry and Writers Welcome!

#TheWritingObsession
You know you want to join!

#Teenage-Writers
Young Writers Unite!

#Creative-Writers

#Literary-Visions
Transforming words into worlds

Show all (19)

Details

Submitted: November 4, 2012
File Size: 2.4 KB

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 16
Favourites: 47 [who?]
Views: 403 (0 today)
Downloads: 6 (0 today)

[x]

stop me if you've heard this one before

by ~MisfitableGrae, Nov 4, 2012, 7:24:05 PM
Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

_{i.
there is a man on the corner of my street
who gave me a bottle of bleach
and told me if i drank it, i'd finally feel clean.

but i gave it back to him, and went home to take a shower.

because i am almost happy,
and i do not want to mess that up by
chugging bleach or fingering knives or thinking too much
about that man who turned my insides cold
from inside of his car.

because this has to be happy.
this has to be what happy feels like.
it feels like god gave me a vodka bottle
filled with nature and people and oceans and deserts and seas,
cause see, it feels like i'm drunk on life.

ii.
i have this nervous habit of scratching holes in my skin
and my mother says it's because
i'm trying to find something beautiful inside me.
she said i need a psychiatrist.
my friend asked me if i needed itching crème.

iii.
i keep laughing about stuff that's probably not funny.

iv.
i don't want it to rain anymore.
used to, i liked the rain,
because if i squinted, all the lines would be blurred.
now, i want to know where i belong.

v.
my father says this is a false relapse.
that i will fall back into whatever keeps me up at night
and holds the knife to my wrist
or the food off the plate or the fingernails to my skin
i tell him that if he can believe in a god he has never seen,
he sure as hell should be able to believe in me.

vi.
he says i might never be okay.
i'm not sure what okay means.
maybe it's like disney world and you can only
know when you've been,
but i also think that we are all broken
and the only reason we hate other broken people for being broken
is because it's not our broken, and maybe our broken pieces
are like snowflakes because we're all
precious and original on the insides, and when we break
we break differently, so we hate the different broken people
because they will never understand our type of broken
and we will never be able to understand their's.

vii.
today someone asked me if i was high,
because that's how dilated my pupils were.
i just smiled and told him that
i threw my bleach out with their expectations.}

stop me if you've heard this one beforeby ~MisfitableGrae

Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

_{see, i was actually really proud of writing this almost happy poem, but then my mother got all mad ant my sister over nothing and she's crying in her room and asking mom to leave her alone and she won't and she keeps saying "psychiatrist" and it's just making everything worse,

so i am hiding in my room with a pillow over my ears because i do not want to hear my hero break.

i'm submitting this, because i think it's ironic.}

~doublethefun Jan 6, 2013

Your writing is extremely relatable. You know how to touch your reader. Amazing work.

*jamberry-song Jan 4, 2013 Professional General Artist

A wistful and touching piece. <3 Things do get better.

Congrats on the feature.

=DailyLitDeviations Jan 4, 2013

Your wonderful literary work has been chosen to be featured by =DailyLitDeviations in a news article that can be found here: [link]
Be sure to check out the other artists featured and show your support by

ing the News Article. Keep writing and keep creating.

(Really, this time.

)

=DailyLitDeviations Dec 29, 2012

Your wonderful literary work has been chosen to be featured by =DailyLitDeviations in a news article that can be found here: [link]

Be sure to check out the other artists featured and show your support by

ing the News Article. Keep writing and keep creating.

!artgeek99 Nov 26, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

I love part VI. My favorite (: Reading your poetry makes me want to be friends with you, honestly. It's super honest and on some level I understand, but at the same time I don't *really* know what it means, and it's like looking into a foggy window trying to see the real you. It's part, but it's nowhere near the whole.

~ChocoCoatedLemons Nov 23, 2012

The author's comment. Wow. That's poetic in itself.

~jplgaara Nov 23, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

I love the way you out words together. Absolutely amazing.

*Lacewinged-Beauty Nov 23, 2012 Writer

^{My absolute, most favourite part of this? The authors comment.

so i am hiding in my room with a pillow over my ears, because i do not want to hear my hero break

Absolutely beautiful.}

=geralsv Nov 19, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Absolutely loved the part about the broken pieces and the snowflakes.
Great job.

~EvaraSilvaen Nov 13, 2012 Student General Artist

Your writing is wonderfully gripping. I was held in thrall until the very end.

More from ~MisfitableGrae

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

stop me if you've heard this one before

stop me if you've heard this one beforeby ~MisfitableGrae

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style