[x]

admittance is defeatthey called you beautiful

with porcelain eyes about to crack
and cigarette skin crumbling
away, a knotted spine and
jagged smile:

you were never gracious.

you're slipping underneath, this
virulent smog masks a paper sky that
never allowed a dream and

you're afraid because it's soaking in
your pores again, unattainable and unoriginal;
the meaning of life never meant enough-

you were never hopeful.

there's a getaway map on the underside
of your pillow, and a lifetime of secrets
on the underside of your bones

you're a walking travesty:
your chest ticks, dull
your wrist beats, dying
time is keeping you but

you were never pa

Epilogues like EpitaphsOnce upon a vapid day in
a town full of glazed-eyed murmurs
ultimately amounting to nothing, she
met a boy who said he'd calculated the
probabilities of wishes and knew what it felt like
to breathe a dream. He told her he'd write
her the world, he'd tell of the promises the
oceans kept and the way the stars never
quite compared to her eyes

but he lied.
And she figured love fancied
narcissism the same way she believed herself
deliquescent. (because we're always looking
for the prettiest ways to say we're
dying inside.)

Then on a broken night that tasted of
lucid intoxication and blind reminiscing,
she met a boy built of big words
whose h

Nighttime Ramblings and InsufficiencyYou drop your jaw,
and you pull words out from
hiding, deep in your throat.
You wretch up a mass of
unfiltered, unedited, reality
because you believe that's what it is
to be understood.

You leave a trail of mutterings
wherever you go
no one will ever want me
it's not enough
and i'm sorry, i'm
so so sorry
Do you remember the difference between
a shadow and a ghost? (the world ends
the day the sun won't shine)

Instead of sleeping (maybe
tomorrow won't come if you
don't say goodnight) you wait;
you will not be remembered, and
that is the scariest part-
you were never loud enough.
i'm s

Indefinite Tidesshe speaks in vinegar riddles
and bides her time in shipwrecked
smiles- she's
ticking off days for the boy
with stormy eyes who promised
he'd be back in a season or
two. he, who was

crafted from the leftover bits of the moon
and the meandering sky with runaway
stars lurking deep beneath his ribcage,
waiting to fall whenever he spoke
like a saint, whose divine sacraments
parted land and birthed lives; like a
sorcerer whose words launched a
thousand sunken ships but

now, she pops pills like reminders,
stabilizers that last 4-6 hours
depending on her ability to forget

and she's lost in herself
again, among faltering brainwa

Sorry Then Safei
we like to play with fire.
as it eats away at our
insipid nature, and licks the
desolate consistency of our bones,
our inner cold is warmed.

you say that it reminds you
of my fevered eyes.

ii.
we make scarecrows into humans
into saviors, then tear them down again
for not cleansing out our wounds.
we forget they were only born
to keep the birds from
devouring us further.

and they watch, feebly, as we
fall face-first into our fate

iii.
you looked me dead in the eye
"we are all walking ghosts
waiting to die so we can live"

and your whitened hands became
a symbol of achievement

iv
we write our epitaphs the day we're c

Storybook AddictionsI want you to love me as much as you do
the thorns in your side; seeds planted and
forgotten and bleeding cyclically.
when the swallowed night drowns and
drains darkness like a trickled lullaby, I want
to be the last thing in your dreams.

I want to be your mistake East of Eden, your lack
of redemption; when they tear apart your paper
flesh with metal claws, I want to be the one you
come crawling back to with bloodied knees.

[right now I am an empty vessel, unfulfilled
and metaphorically obsolete. I want to clear
my throat for once, without seeing the ashes
of my disease.]

I want to love you like a swansong;
breezes make your bones ach

appropriately appallingi
the flies are in the food, again.
festering, feeding- because i sewed
shut my lips when you warned me
they were a gaping wound.

silence is the best kind of infection;
you can't know what's kept inside

ii
i carry little girl dreams
of dying and coming back
diseased, depraved, an atrocity;
at least then I'd be something
worth writing home about

i deserve more than what
i am- i am selfish and
greedy, but not strong
enough
to steal a life worth living

(look at me now, mom
i'm growing into the
ugly thoughts i birthed.
i think this is what it must feel like
to finally follow through)

iii
there are things you never say:

crystal catastrophies bottled upv
her shaky hands couldn't hold a pen
or a promise
"my fingers have broken
trying to rewrite clichés-
believe me when I say, I'm special"
hollow laughs glossed over her
tempered smile

as she waited for the day
when that might actually mean
something

i
there was an eve long before dawn
ever tainted the starry night sky and
inflicted vision on those who preferred
to stay in the dark, where a girl
crooned quietly to herself
"what if when we meet,
I've run out of I love you's?"

this was before the sun whispered in her ears
that they'd never mattered, anyway

iv
hopelessness descends
on wearied souls
who couldn't lear

Staying for the Seasonyou were born
of a broken cradle
where no one taught you
how to breathe

you need the stars
like nourishment, but
they just don't feel
the same

you live like a heart attack,
an insufferable shuddering,
a socially aware illness without
the will to pull through

it's a sad truth when we
look up in the mirror, and
only see ourselves-

but it's okay.
write it on the walls, it's
okay, you just need a
little more sleep.

(wake up. it's nearly
December and you're
already dead.)

myths and the things that really matterin a season of wavering will
and ripe regret, I was born
too old - into a fragile world
of butterfly feathers and
springtime secrets, tied tenderly
around hollow hallucinations and
carefully called a "dream"

they promise you things
when you are too young to
understand the monsters under
your bed are really fragments
of you, left to disintegrate
in the dark. they say: you
will touch the world, you will
know the stars by name, you
will be our deliverance from
all the things we were not

you will be strong.

but they don't know, no,
I am a yard sale:

I sold my heart to a boy
with lilting lies and eyes
that looked human

scraps and sacramentsyou,
beautiful siren girl with melodies
entangled in her hair: you are
shell-shocked and sea-struck
even though you cannot stand
the sensation of sand beneath
your toes.

you have fingers for prying, picking,
pulling at your skin and nesting
in that hollow space between
your bones. and if anyone asks,
you will swear there are monsters
sleeping in the concaves of your ribs;
there are ghosts beneath your tongue,
embittered, and you are not the words
you speak.

they say there is an answer, little girl
(sometimes you begin to believe you are
a scarecrow on the border of reality
begging people to turn the other way;
and the mirror will agree)

WelcomeI'm ready for a romance to ravage my heart and tear apart my
dusty limbs, I'm waiting for someone to take my breath and
never give it back; I'm prepared to sell all I was for a trip
somewhere new - beyond the paper mistakes I sailed away
down the river long ago. (even rocks and leaden thoughts
won't let the truth sink.)

I left my being somewhere under a waning summer sun
when the trees hummed melodies of moving on;
my soul still stays there, porous and pining and
lost. Dying stars don't lead home.

I suppose
it's more than just losing
your words, it's losing
you

too.

I am someone who mourns Sunday morning for another lost
w

Keepers of My Hearti.
you are in love with being in love
like you're caught on the train tracks,
tied down by want, waiting for that
insistent collision to
steal you away into the land
of concussions and self-medication
and hearts that barely heal

ii.
and stories confessing the notches
in your bedpost, the lines in
your smile. the sour note in your
liberally dissonant melody.

iii.
you did not want tangibility

cotton trees cascading and butterfly
innards, serenading clouds and
fluorescent lips
(until the sky came crashing down
and you reoriented the earth)

iv.
you did not want me

v.
I am solid and as notable as
the ghosts sleeping in y

embeddeda sunset blister[pops] overhead, dripping
security. she kisses her lover and leaves
with splinters in lips. there are moments
when she swears she can hear a breath
rattling somewhere within his
reciprocating chest
she swears in vain

and sometimes it's like they recycled
an old day, it fits the same and that
is an alarming halt to progression-
she says, we have to move on

but she doesn't ever leave, feet buried
under years of promises and plans and
anxieties. she's had a bird cage by her bed
since she was a little girl (begging wounded
blue jays to escape)

the day won't break, he watches
her sleep uneasily, respiring
like

Poets Always Lieambrosial fabrications are
easier to swallow down when
incandescence is a blessing bestowed
only upon those with silky tongues.

deceptions are beautiful
in the right words

because they are salvation, like a
rapture, they save the sickly,
self-indulgent souls from those
tragedies they used to write on the insides
of childhood notebooks about who
they could never be [themselves]

they rescue them from tremulous
corners and closets, hideaways
where they've grown too akin to
the demons they nurse; and drag
them into a land beautiful enough
to wear light as a second skin

(where lies are never discussed
but always shared)

cl

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More from ~intricately-ordinary

defeatheredand this is where we bury our hearts,
between self-defeating personality disorders
and burnt bridges and midnight ramblings
we promise ourselves aren’t true;
embedding our memories in forsaken homes
like it is a conscious decision to shed
our wings (reptiles don’t fly)

and maybe I am the monster of every
myth: wide-eyed and jagged toothed and
looking to regain a piece of myself the
world borrowed, many moons ago

as I falter and stumble over my own unaware
feet, wreaking havoc, reeking of self-acquittal--

all I ever wanted to do was belong.

dreams are flaws much like the hearts we
flaunt on our sleeves, and I seem to
have len

Hear No EvilI don’t know what you think you’ll find in the hollows of my lies
and cracks of my spirit but it’s not me; courage is the weak voice
in the middle of the night that says we’ll try again but
I am deaf.
truly, though, I clawed my ears out and fed them to the beasts--
an offering of all I had:
the words I’d never need.

I am a secret, can you taste me coating your tongue? I am
that lie you never let slip, I am every mistake you ever made, I am
regret.
I am the demons nesting in the back of your mind as you
mourn for lost nights; yet I am only chalk,
I will line your feet one day--
the paths you traveled dusting

Insomniacs and Insecuritesthe ground is a friend, feeble feet meet stability
and never return. it listens, oh, it listens
with tiled ears and absorbs all your secrets.
fault cracks, your fears seep underneath
the pavement, someone knows
that you cry at smoggy nights and
run out of words when you stop to breathe
and you drown in your thoughts, no
one taught you to swim, your

stunted, stilted stature goes stagnant and
this is destiny. it was written in
the storybooks that the princess would find
an answer in the murky depths and her
prince would turn out to be the
desperate attempt at normalcy all along

(raw,
plunging face-first through
vibrant v

starry eyes implodeshe cannot recall all
the things she's
swallowed:
pretty pills, rancid
razor blades and
wasted words coat
her sorry throat

she can't count her
fingers, like she can't
count the days again--
it's zero to zero, in it
to spin it:
time is measured in
lengths of abandonment.

she comes home empty-
handed; defeated,
depleted, repeated:
"I gave up again
I gave up I gave it
away I gave up"
repeated like some
makeshift lullaby

and once more she
apologizes to a
broken window,
shattered, scattered,
just hoping to
know somewhere
better to go

and when she walks,
she holds hands
with the yellowed
skeleton of a
forgo

Revenantthey came like phantoms;

oceanic whispers left me washed out.
those gossamer ghosts that lined
the doorways-- eyes in a constant
state of surprise as they reached for me:

needle fingers pricked, fueling
my addictions. they ached
for my veins, entangled like
the strings of my paper heart

and they stained my skin,
amethyst bruises in the shape
of recognition.

their breaths were the heavy hums
of a forgotten lullaby "one day you
will leave, and you will fade into a
virulent void, like us. you will warm
our icy bones, and we will love you,
like no one else can.

go back to sleep, little girl, we will
come again" with their cer

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Submitted: November 12, 2012
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Colorblind

by ~intricately-ordinary, Nov 12, 2012, 7:07:24 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

I gave away my name today

and it might be a metaphor, but I think
we only remember the quietest suicides

the walls are thin enough to listen
as the angels try to scratch free;
bloodied fingernails and God says everyone
screws up, sometimes

I'm waiting for a silent night.

I only ever believed in solid ground
and depressions' tides, and sometimes,
those little wounds I nursed deep
within my vocal chords (because
my voice is dying, too)

I can see the beautiful people, now
overdosing on their own opiums of
self-acquittal and dissolution

they ran out of ways to ask for help.

I'm fragile, but my glass ribs
aren't holding much

and I'm through trying to find something
different, because it's scary to know
what exactly's the same

yesterday I was someone else and
tomorrow I'm further into inevitabilities of
who I promised I'd never be--

I'm waiting for a happy ending,
but if you love something
you let it go.

Colorblindby ~intricately-ordinary

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

It’s a gray sort of silence, that rests in your chest.

For the #theWrittenRevolution
What were your favorite/ least favorite lines? Do you think the thoughts flow together in a reasonable progression? What were your emotions as you read? What do you think the message is? Does the title fit well? Any other comments or suggestions.

(My critique: [link])

love 2 2

joy 1 1

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

*Blacksand459 Jan 1, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

"they ran out of ways to ask for help."

"and I'm through trying to find something
different, because it's scary to know
what exactly's the same

yesterday I was someone else and
tomorrow I'm further into inevitabilities of
who I promised I'd never be-- "

Those were my favorite lines...but that being said, there were no least favorite lines either. I loved the whole piece, including the title.

I think the progression, the thoughts, flow quite well indeed. It definitely feels like one, strong thread of intense emotion and thought.

My emotions? Well, to me, this feels very truthful, and very melancholy. Immediately I empathized with you, if this is a true reflection of your thoughts at a point in time, and it also struck chords deep in me. There is a quietness to this...as one who has pondered, brooded, cried often...and is left with this summation.

The line, "they ran out of ways to ask for help," is all about hindsight to me. All the times of silent communication...hoping someone would pick up on the unspeakable groaning in my soul. Although it is often acted out in ways which may cloud the real issue...appearing to be simple anger or apathy, disillusionment, depression.
And it is these outward signs which others see and assume that it is merely a poor attitude.

The last three stanzas are smashing. To paraphrase Adam Sandler in the film, "Mr. Deeds," that if we could look at ourselves now, through the eyes of our childhood selves, what would we see? Would we approve? The inevitabilities you speak of have come true in my life.

The happy ending. Yes. I hear you well. Personally, I know that if any happy endings are found in this life, they are only window dressing...for they cannot compare to Heaven.

Absolutely well done.

~intricately-ordinary Jan 1, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Let me start off by saying thank you for such a long and thoughtful comment. It's always wonderful for me to hear what different people (especially great writers) think about my work.

I loved how you described one of the ways you saw the poem as having a "quietness." Though I'd never specifically thought it, that's what I was trying to achieve with this. A nearly silent statement.

"...hoping someone would pick up on the unspeakable groaning in my soul." oh, that's just such a terrible state of being, isn't it? Waiting for someone to find what you're too scared to show.

I haven't seen that movie, but I appreciate the perspective. It's something I deal with a lot, wondering if I'm moving on or giving up and if the two are really so different at the end of the day.

Thank you so much for all your thoughts and interpretations

*Blacksand459 Jan 1, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

You're welcome; it was my pleasure to read and comment on it. I also enjoy longer comments when I receive them, to really hear what someone thought as they read it. I sense a kindred spirit in you...I'm not sure how to explain myself, but it feels that way to me. And I'm glad I picked up on what you intended with this piece.

You blend thoughts and phrases like precious spices hidden in a cupboard, brought out to the delight of all who partake in them. It's true.

I wonder, too. I'm afraid I don't know the answer either. But to be able to distill coherence from the daily mischief we live in...that is a gift.

A great writer? Thank you kindly for that compliment.

And you are very welcome.

*DogmaticKerr Dec 23, 2012

This is so incredibly, heart-wrenchingly sad... and it is so beautiful, for that. It reminds me of my youth - something I yearn for, sometimes. The middle grabs me the most but, to be honest, the whole thing is quite seductive.

~intricately-ordinary Dec 23, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I'm honored to hear you think it is beautiful, and that it can remind you of yourself. Thank you so much for your kind comment

*DogmaticKerr Dec 23, 2012

It is, perhaps, a little self-indulgent of me to describe it as such, but I really feel that such... painful things can really be that - beautiful. So many people feel so many things, but they never do anything with them - they do not sit and think on them, they do not search them to their deepest corners to not just understand it, but become it. When you can write about it in such a way, you've clearly done a lot, if not all, of that... and it is a lovely thing, because such a person can really become so much.
It does - high school, in particular. The roughest time for me and filled with a lot of pain, a lot of observation and introspection. The poem for me goes "the thinking / the crying / the observing / the introspection / the resignation" and I have such vivid memories of how all that felt and the places it led me. Hopefully this is more than just nostalgic self-indulgence - hopefully I've understood and felt what was meant to be conveyed!

And you are,of course, ever so welcome Miss Intricate

~intricately-ordinary Dec 24, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I certainly agree on all counts. Beauty comes from pain and wisdom comes from reflection. I appreciate everything I have been through because of how it has shaped me, and for the fact I have come out stronger on the other side. That is true strength- deliverance from devastation and adaptation in the shadow of pain. You definitely understood what I tried to convey, and I'm truly touched it was something you identified with. I always hope that in my poetry people can see themselves, especially on that delicate point of turning pain into art. Thank you

*DogmaticKerr Dec 24, 2012

Well, then I am not only awestruck at your skill in writing, but also incredibly pleased with myself for gleaning what was intended ^.^ You continue to impress, Miss, with your continually clever way with words and I have to say that your well-spoken nature is a wonderful treat, compared to most! It hasn't been more than a few words since I last complimented you, but once again... you are exquisite. Your comments are as good as your poetry, miss!

You're welcome!

~intricately-ordinary Dec 24, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I am barely exquisite but absolutely honored you think so!

gosh, thank you again!

*DogmaticKerr Dec 24, 2012

Ohmygosh! It's happened! I must disagree with you - because you are exquisite and I find that to be demonstrably so! If I had some graph paper and a decent pencil I would show you, but alas... you'll just have to take my word for it.

You are, as ever, welcome

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