[x]

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

Somewhere Between Creation and Beingthey built him out of sandpaper
so he could help those
a little rough around the edges

they gave him rose-colored irises
and put his heart in his throat
so he could only speak love

they wrote him a history
deep within his DNA
(lingering, and a little too clingy)
but he learned to live on promises
instead of mistakes

they gifted him off-center feet
that always leaned into his dreams;
he was tall enough to live
with his head in the clouds.

sometimes waiting gets to you.
it settles your leaden bones
and you forget why your legs won't move

you fall a little too far
into everything you're praying on,
and you d

Fervid AwakeningThere's a fire beneath my feet,
but not the kind that burns
mountains and ruins girls
made of papier-mâché—no,

these are the sparks that
drive the insane to dance in
the rain; the flames that
gave birth to a million voices
itching to be heard, too.

It's spreading, settling, somewhere deep
beneath my sternum, like an anticipatory
story, waiting to be told, giving
my heart the ardor to beat.
-
No one ever says happiness
is like a butterfly: beautiful,
flighty, and fleeting.

If you let it slip through your
fingers—you are left
alone, palms full of feathery dust
which soon fades and leads to the scary

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

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

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

In Piecesrum-lust lips make gentle friends,
words slurred in hands blurred,
burning in between the lines to find
some
drunken concoction of wilted laughs
and heavy sighs, scented sultry
with desperation.

you are that
rasping in my throat when my voice
deteriorates and I am left breathless
and hopeless and raw, my
muscles ache in memory of the
motions to forget-
we do not let go.

and cold beds call, stability,
metal frames and sunken heads –
rest now, rest with
a prayer on your lips you don't
care to share, a dream in
your mind you'll never get back;
rest and the earth will lend you peace
and

you will stop. the rivers will cle

Amnesiacsmaybe you forgot how to
wake up without screaming.

she smiles like a broken dawn
and the meek will inherit the
earth, if they don't drown,
first. she's barely breathing;
trying to grow gills because
it's only in the state of dying
that we adapt.

and you won't see the colors
pouring out of her chest, you
won't hear the ebbing swansong
she hums so quietly.

you didn't come to be reminded.

you inject a little further, a little
closer to the heart. numb.

(she died the day she
was given a name)

she made you promise never
to be a number, or a majority;
she made your heart beat in a way
that made you think you were alive,

I'll Be There When the Wind Blowsi
one day I'll be nothing but a whisper
in the swollen sky, which ebbs and flows
whenever you choose to open your eyes

this voice will be lost in the onslaught,
and I'll fade into my greatest fears

ii
my thoughts have been known to shatter
on occasion, into fine powder
that scatters in the face of execution

I always worried roots grown in unstable ground
and remembering the way my body was built
would free the catastrophes sighing within me

it's easier to succumb to future's inevitabilities
that welcome you with undefined arms

iii
sometimes I release pieces of myself
because I don't like the story they tell
about the history

Worthlessthe worst part about being nothing
is knowing nothing is commonplace
and, even though I thought I was so
special
I was exactly the same

     I'll never say your name
     because then this would feel real
     and I would have to accept
     that giving all I had
     never meant a thing

     does a wooden heart still beat,
     or does it only leave splinters?
     did you ever even think of me-
     the wea

Arise and Breathelittle siren girl, held up by fishhooks
and lines - you'll only be free when
they cut you loose.

still, they tell you: you will not fall
victim to swelling tides, you
will float. (you are a dead weight.)

you are something incomplete
like the forgotten house on the
end of the row, eating itself,
dimming day by day:
paint chips and chapped lips
have nothing left to say.

there are monsters nursing
deep beneath your flesh, with
threadbare spines and trembling
hands, they are afraid of their own
shadows. (you are only weak when
your eyes are open)

a new year waits upon your doorstep,
promising to take all that was ever [you]

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.)

Tender Vivisectionslet's pretend we never shared a word
or a thought, or an identity
because those patterns and indistinct
separations that came to be what made us
last, were always the most frightening things
about you

               I fell asleep to memories
               of intangible emotions
               and bitter ramblings
               whenever

Verifiedsometimes fear is a little black monster that waits in your closet
nursing all your skeletons back to health, tempting you
with tightly wound lies like bitter almond candies

and compliance is second only to believing that maybe, just maybe,
the words slithering out of its mouth (then around your throat,
choking you when you are finally alone enough to be convinced truth
is objective) are something real, something worth believing in

unlike all the other things that have forsaken you,
there's a certain comfort in knowing that fear is
a constant, it is a shadow, it is as concrete as the bags
you carry excess time in under your eyes;

RestlessI’ve been living in the same breathy dream
for too many days now; I’m bed-ridden and
stale and I reek of those moments that come
full throttle like a car crash on a winter night

   this is evolution where weak hearts
   are afraid of the shadows and where
   everything changes,
   an apologetic wind births no remorse;
   he will move on—anchored ship
   set sail, I am the sunken wreckage
   that never learned how to swim.
   he will move on, Darwin says
   I never had a chance

I wish I were the textbook sadness,
symptom and solution and endurance
but I’ve spent too long sleeping on the

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More from *intricately-ordinary

The Art of Detachmentdehumanized:
I am a stirring in the breath
of an unswept sky, an itch
in the throat, a tear in
the lining of the sleeve you
keep fingering- like reminiscence
will repair loose strands

(I woke up this morning
in a new carcass, trapped,
by fleshed out flaws and
dismal dreams and the
hush hush thrum ,steady,
[pulsations are riddled with
intent] of my veins)

I am the dents in the floorboard
where boxes of I-can-never-forgets
lay, I am the aching cold of walls
untouched, I am the callouses
of your fingers forgetting
how to work.

(my voice will melt the icecaps,
it will draw all salt from
the ocean and carve a careful
coffin

Scratcheswe're dancing in that narrow expanse where the only sound
is the contraction of a writhing unwilling heart;
we're finding our way back to the surface through
layers like paper ceilings and puppet strings

and we're tied out by our own shortcomings- snaked
like a noose, fangs nip at our heels and

we've lost control, and we've lost direction
and we've lost ourselves in the people that mean
nothing. we curl up like a tapeworm deep inside
esophagus' and promise we'll never leave
(oh please promise me you'll share my heart
when the anemic night comes)

leaden feet and feather eyes, I can't see what
you mean but I found an answer betw

Ashes to Asheswhen they peel back her skin they
find a feeble layer of stringent
exigency saved up for the people who
would lend her a light on her path
to gossamer fabrications, she's

lost herself in fairytales like
the crumbs that don't lead home
and the girl who needs to sleep off
a few decades before things can
fall into place-

she dug her own grave but
it turned out to be a rabbit hole,
she's sea sick- she lulls
it's
a little disarming when the waves reflect
your mirrored malignance and the
only way out is
down
(her siren song sounds like
a martyr's last motive)

she sighs and p

Skeletal Foundationsit's the city that makes you,
she says when her industrialized eyes
start to flicker. her heart rushes
like a subway falling late and
the patterns in her skin remind you of
striated architecture (reminds you of how
everything's human in its own way)

we're precarious concrete skeletons
crafted by men praying we won't fall,
and we yearn- you know- we ache
for a sense of vitality and being to
enter us and make us more than a
pale ghost of an engineer's dreams and

maybe we have our own shadowy corners,
too.

commotion exists betwixt her ears and
she's a destination, a place to rest and
catch your breath but not to settle
down b

reservethe walls gasp as
recognition-stained hallucinations
take the covers and defile
the windows with their
presence. the doors are stripped
free, because they never felt open.
tonight, i am the wilted flower's
last cry.

(your name burns my skin) we are only
the weakest we have ever been and
i am an ugly duckling of paper
and poignant prayers.

i'm tied to a summer's day
almost real enough to lose myself in, of
white minds and placid trees, swaying
as though leaves would never fall;
this was months before i changed and
before my skin flaked and i was left
a metallic form of undone want-
before you cringed from the hiss
o

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

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Sleeping Souls Never Lie

by *intricately-ordinary, Sep 20, 2012, 9:49:54 PM
Literature / Poetry / Narrative / Free Verse

they buried you
with stars in your palms, because
they thought it was a crime
you'd never made a wish in your life

the dirt and darkness
was enough to extinguish
their dying lights

(it's okay, your silent skin
said, softly, I always wanted
the sky to bring me to sleep)

the priest begged, believing you
might rise from the hole
you'd dug for yourself

he wanted to let you know
there was something bigger than all of us,
someplace farther than 6 feet under

(I'm alright, your stony eyes
swore, sometimes falling
feels enough like flying)

their voices all filled with tears
even though you said you weren't worth
their worries, they wept for the future
you wouldn't get to live

(I wouldn't have lived it anyways,
you cooed)

they buried you
near the ocean, where the moon
always shone too bright
so you'd never again have to fear
any monsters of the night

they left flowers, photos, notes
and a little bit of themselves, too
when they finally left you

you believed it was right
even when the moon fell, abandoned
and the monsters came to steal away
the memories you'd
discarded, along with all prior
awkward instances of mortality

you believed you were right

(I'm going to be fine, I
can make it on my own
you cried, you sighed, I'm
going to be fine and
maybe my dreams
really will come true
you called, you screamed)

but no one ever heard you.

Sleeping Souls Never Lieby *intricately-ordinary

Literature / Poetry / Narrative / Free Verse

[The first thing I've written that I've actually been proud of in a while.]

Got to thinking about the words some people never hear.

!randomlyinspired-21 Nov 3, 2012 Student Writer

This is so incredible!

It really left me that lasting aura and impression, plus while I read I really felt every word...

*intricately-ordinary Nov 3, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

That's what I had hoped to accomplish, I'm so happy. Thank you very much!

!randomlyinspired-21 Nov 3, 2012 Student Writer

Your welcome!

*lantern-rose Oct 1, 2012 Professional Writer

Oh this is so sad. Your writing is always so powerful and full of emotion. Words come people never hear and words some people never say. I feel like this poem asks readers to really think about both.

*intricately-ordinary Oct 1, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

that is exactly it, I'm so honored you could pick it up. You are far too kind, your words build me up and make me feel so wonderful. Thank you so much!

*lantern-rose Oct 3, 2012 Professional Writer

My pleasure!

Thank YOU for sharing!

*SomethingOnceSacred Sep 29, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

What a lovely, melancholy piece. I got sucked in at the first line, and have read it through at least three more times since XD

I love that the one the poem's speaking about seems to either live in this delusion of contentment, or be unwilling to let anyone know that they need help.

*intricately-ordinary Sep 29, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you! That's so kind!

People are really interesting in that they both desire and deny help. I left this one really open for interpretation, and people saw what was close to them, I think. Some see a person caught up in lying to themselves, while others see someone struggling to be independent.

Again, thank you. You are fantastic

*SomethingOnceSacred Sep 29, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Once again, it was my pleasure, of course!

I agree, people are strange creatures in that way. We are both complicated and simple, I think.

I really believe you've captured that aspect of humans wonderfully here, excellent work!

~Pen-and-mouse Sep 27, 2012

Absolutely amazing!

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Sleeping Souls Never Lie

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