[x]

tear the skeleton from his comfortzonei want to build a skyscraper, seventeen stories high
and fill each floor with a story from the people who never said goodbye.

i.
a middle child, born in 1994,
she always wanted to be loved the most
until she learned how to give a blowjob
in an alley behind Miss China’s Takeaway
at knife point.

ii.
she lost her childhood
to an ocean who always thought it was small
and never stopped pushing its borders.

iii.
he’s not sure how he’s supposed to live without her.
staring at the closed coffin, he loses the ability to want to.

iv.
it’s not fair, she thinks,
that the house creaks when she’s trying to sleep,
but when

manifestosand there you are

unconventional enough to
resuscitate my heart

the way you make me feel at least
13 years younger is
uncontrollable, manifested in
how I show you my art like
maybe you'll tape it to your fridge

I dig
I dig so hard
the way you hold adjectives and nouns
captive
mangle them up and sew them together
in a colorful mass of
tangled syntax

and I'm in constant
jaw-dropped
awe

everything you do hits me hard enough to
shatter my communication skills
brain-dead my
inhibitions and (oh now)
I'm a greedy child,
only three words saturating
my veins

mine
mine
mine

deflourgod's
got a thing

for women in white dresses,

legs broken and
twisted

like the knot
of a dead man's
noose

At Least I Can WriteNever write
in this state of mind:
that's what I keep telling myself
as I jot down every word.

Last night's anguish
came from having no woman.
Pinning you against the armorial
with lips pressed to my neck
behind walls so paper thin,
one would think the voices on the other side
were our own,
only we weren't speaking with words.

Almost is never enough.

Tonight's anguish
comes from not having enough money:
grounded to the house
listening to what sounds like the neighbors
killing each other.
Oh don't mind me;
I'm just waiting for the checks to clear.
At least then I can over draw my account, again.

Tomorrow nig

no wonder it took him 1455 pageswhen i was seven years old, a group of kids in my grade threw rocks at me for liking neopets more than webkinz. from then on, i was convinced i knew what hatred meant. but i don’t know how to describe it to the little girl who sits in the corner of my womb and in ten years might call me mommy and ask for help on dividing the world into black and white.

would i point to the churches with their bigotry? to the cotton fields of the south in the 1800s? to the classrooms of modern day america? would i tell her about how the jews stood in straight lines, waiting to die, with fear in their eyes and faith in their hearts? or would i try and de

Sky EyesDesert hands tell tales
of a hundred arid summers, but
you are no longer as cloudless as they

(there is a storm
creeping through blue, blue veins).

But tell the sky to keep her sorrow,
that grey cascade blurring against
eyelids and horizons;

and suppress her misbegotten
droplets, seeping into the sodden
ground underfoot—

for there is still sun in your sky eyes.

Chemical Equations of Undesired Lovei carry hopscotch eyes across
unscientific minds,
but for just this one time -
i'll sustain this imprisoned gaze
upon you.

and He believedalong the road to change, you decide:
you lack a heart. your voice will
tear the world asunder. you
wreak havoc on the unassuming,
because you stopped trusting in
institutional stability the day
God poured over you.

He cleansed you in his tears, He said
He built you strong- it was
an obligation with weighted
requirements. He drove nails into
your flesh to test your faith,
you were pained and you were
perfect.

you were a prize, a person to
swallow lechery and lead our world
into redemption; you would tempt us
from our questions why

everyone needs a Hero
(but who do you have?)

-

I cared about you, once, when
you were unb

CAUTION: Overdose .Never have I tasted lips
that could demolish me quite like yours.
Don't touch my skin like that,
you'll make me want to slip
into your veins.

WARNING: I'm more addictive than heroine.

Side effects may include sweat-soaked sheets,
loss of sight and bruises
[on your neck, collarbone and
every-fucking-where you'd like them, baby.]

Too bad you never were one to read labels.

I'll leave you so breathless, you'll find
your own fingers digging at your throat.
Sorry to disappoint -
oxygen will never satisfy you after
you get a taste of my breath
[between your hips.]

Floodgate EyesPlease promise me something better,
even if it is a lie-- sometimes believing
is enough. (sometimes knowing is too
much. tomorrow I will wake up
and travel a little farther down the road
to my own self-destruction. You are
my crutch.)

I won't look back, I'm already wrapped up
in my fears of the moment. An intricate
web of justifications and anxiety is
tethering me to these uncertain feelings.

Would you finally cut me free
if I caved into you? Because
I think I'm getting close.

And I think I read the world all wrong,
but I can still play along.
because selling yourself short never did
anyone harm, and besides, I

Empty Nestand as your sepia-saturated voice fades into the night

you will remember all those dreams you woke from,
weeping, for the conversations you'd never
have and the people you'd never get back

you will remember the flock of birds that used to
reside in your chest, pounding against your
ribcage, crying to be free (and you will try
to remember the day their wings went silent)

as you hear the leaves hum and the sky pulse,
you will try to fall into cadence with the steady
music of nature, but instead begin to believe you're just

an outlier.

you will tell yourself, in your needly, narcissistic
way: you are a falling star, a withering cel

As Insubstantial As Cigarette Smokei.
they wrapped me through with police tape
before i was born;
yellow silk fetters entwined among
the arches of my ribs
and along the hollow bumps of my spine
like a warning

binding back what leviathan lay
indistinct
and waiting
in the dusk

i've searchedandsearched and never found it,
but they promise me,
(oh promise me it's there).

ii.
i've tried to call down the sun from up high
because i didn't like the way it made everything
light.
i prefer the darkness.
(they've told me that's
where i belong,
hidden away for what
better purpose i have yet to
understand.)

iii.
i'm drowning in shadows vague and empty,
and all th

UnknownI'd listen to radio signals
But all I'd hear is chlorine bleached static
That leaves a the bitter taste of Advil in my thoughts
Drugged up in an anaesthetic haze of morphine induced comatose
I'd clench my teeth to stop the florescent vowels
From escaping my insomniac lips
I've chewed them shut and pasted book spines on my ribcage
In an attempt to be something organic and interesting
Because the plain Jane exterior I've laced between my iris's
Is becoming a contradiction of what little sanity I possess

syracuseListen to the audio version for the full effect, pretty please.
cloudshot sky like an oil painting and i am watching the
seagulls. i--
darling, i will swim for you
and swallow every whitecap.
i will pluck myself a coat of pelican wings,
sew them up with salt and spray--
become icarus for you.
you are calling me across the waves, love--
but you pull against the ache
in my bones, the hollow--
the clawing out for unseen sunsets and unturned tides.
i hear you, love
give me time.
i will always listen.

A letter to past loves.Dear Boy number 1,
you turned my world upside down,
changed green into red and smiles to tears.
Who would've thought that
your teasing and your games would
plant a fear into my bones, so strong that
I still cannot shake it?

Dear Boy number 2,
I don't think about you anymore
but I don't think about you any less, either.
Your love consumed me and
pushed me to the edge of insanity.
We were fire one second, ice the next,
battle wounds were inflicted just to get a taste of blood.
We were right in all the wrong ways, but to you,
holding another was second nature.

Dear Boy number 3,
you only ever touched me
in the dark alleys of to

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More from ~MisfitableGrae

Mili1.
it took me six years, one promise{dream},
three secrets
and four little words dropped like a bomb
for me to realize that Mili Shukla
was not special.

2.
mili has this way of entering into your life
out of nowhere, like a Tennessean storm,
and disappearing like the last minute of a sunset.

in sixth grade, Mili was the first one to decide
she was old enough to cuss. I always made fun of her for
being short, but now I think she grew up more than all of us.

mili doesn't eat a lot, but she swears she knows she's thin.
she also swears she knows she's loved, but once
she spent an entire lunch crying in the bathroom.

when Mili real

Sydney MerrellThe first thing I ever noticed about Sydney
Was that her last name was branded on my no-laces shoe.

The second was that she was the first person my age to smile at me.

That was when we were five
And played pirate on the run down playground
Where a splinter was a death wound.
I can't make it. You'll have to go on without me.

When we were in first grade, she held a Barbie
Up to my nose, and told me,
"When I grow up, I'm going to be just like this."
Maybe I shouldn't have laughed.

I can't make it. You'll have to go on without me.
It was easier to go on without her than I originally thought.
Just ignore a few house calls, then a few

Grace W.She stays on the Internet until
Her dad comes yelling at her to get off the damn thing
And go downstairs.
But going downstairs implies going to bed and
Going to bed means falling asleep,
And she's never really done that well.

She can't.
Fall asleep, I mean.

She lies in bed and plays games
Like counting backwards from one hundred
And counting Sheep, but the Sheep always turn into
Failed Test, Failed Friend,
Failed Life.
But the worst is the ransom game she plays,
Where she's been kidnapped and her parents don't pay the ransom.
But some nights they do, and then decide she's not worth it
And try to get a refund.

She keeps tryin

LindseyIf I only know one thing about Lindsey
It's that she has broken
Far too many times to count.

Oh, and that she doesn't deserve
What her friends say about her.

For two years, Lindsey dated Matthew
And thought it was love.
Only Matthew knew it was guilt
And the inability to say no.

They say she had the perfect wedding planned
Out in her head and thought she had finally
Found her perfect prince.
They hated her for being happy.

But Lindsey is not based on her past
Relationships, and she is not defined by the boy
She's left hanging
Because she's still waiting
For the boy who left her.

Lindsey is defined by the color of her eyes

JonahJonah's eyes are as blue as the ocean
He almost never went to
And the sky he almost never saw.
But that's putting it too poetically, I guess.
His eyes are blue, just like mine.
His skin is white and Belgian
And he probably still has a scar on his chest
From a surgery his two-years-older brother can't
Remember him having.

Jonah comes to school every Monday with
A new skinned knee or scabbed arm.
And if he's that bad at longboarding,
I tell him, he should just quit.
He just laughs.

Jonah has stolen my journal to read my poems
More times than I can count.
I just hope he's found them interesting, because
There's something about

CaitlynIt's the little things I know about Caitlyn Cameron.
She never tells anyone the big things.

Once, Caitlyn Cameron broke in front of me.
She leaned against the dirty bathroom stall
And clutched herself, like it was all that held her
Together.
"My sister cut herself last night."
And the one time Caitlyn Cameron trusted someone
Enough to see her break
That someone could not help her.

Sometimes when it rains,
Caitlyn Cameron will stand out in the water
And ask God why she wasn't good enough.
She says it feels good to blame someone for her cut-off angel wings.
She can still feel them desperately trying to take her some place better.

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Submitted: November 22, 2012
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[x]

you break it, you buy it.

by ~MisfitableGrae, Nov 22, 2012, 9:33:51 PM
Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

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 falling apart and
avoiding the things that make me whole because
self-destruction will always be my forte.}

3._{broken people seem to have a way of finding each other.
like we work under this assumption that we can find
perfect in each other's missing pieces,
even though we all know two wrongs will never make a right

"do you want me to fuck you?" you ask,
because you want to hear the yes, the affirmation that
someone could love you as much as you don't love yourself.
and i say yes, because your happiness will always be worth more than mine
but really i am saying, nononono,
i want you to fall in love with me.

broken people do not help other broken people.
we destroy them further, even if we do not mean to.}

4. _{sometimes people ask me why i seem so grown up.
they ask where my childhood went.
sometimes i tell them that peter pan raped my mother,
or that i've crossed out too many 'grace and _____ forever'
or that the government cancelled my ability
to reach for the stars.

i never tell them that i think my childhood
just got very good at hiding from the bruises and
black eyes that threaten its life.
it sits on my collarbone and inside the dip of my ankle
and i will always keep its secret.

there are days when i want to be a poet,
and i have to remind myself to care about others.
i was always the kid in the back who
chewed on blue colored crayons and told herself
that silver was the best she could ever achieve}

5._{i make my houses out of photographs and help the wolf blow them down.

for so long, i've held my fists closed and now
i think i've forgotten how to let go.

This Is Me Screaming At You.}

you break it, you buy it.by ~MisfitableGrae

Literature / Poetry / Emotional / Free Verse

^{this isn't really a poem guys. it's just little fragments put together, but i am too tired for anything else. and i'm still trying to find me, so this is a list of everything i already know.

because there are thirty minutes left in thanksgiving, i am not thankful for the sound the trees make when they tap on my window, but i am thankful for my family. i am not thankful for ladybugs or marshmallows, but i am thankful for my friends. and i am not thankful for "broken", but i am thankful for this life.

thank you and i hope that you are thankful too.

EDIT:oh my god guys. what. why? guys. oh my gosh. thank you all so much~ you know, every time i log in after submitting a poem, i, like, tell myself "don't get your hopes up, maybe there'll be one or two new messages." and this? oh god, guys. i love you so much and now i'm going to log off before i hyperventilate because front page}