like a stranger by the-chemical-factory, literature
Literature
like a stranger
i feel like my lungs
might collapse
under all this pressure
and all i can think about is how
i probably shouldn't have
slept with you
i can live life in drag
but god i hate the stage
i could have stayed
in that closet
but life's inevitability
pulled me out
kicking and screaming
through no fault of my own
it's years later
and i still can't
close a door softly
i slam it
i need the rattle
i need the bang
i need to make noise
i need to be heard
when i come
or when i go
and you've gotten
so good
at picking my locks
i don't know why i bother
putting them up
you can keep all your shit
in my cupboards
just don't make me r
Where do we go when our eyes are closed? Do we wake in forests, black dirt cracked between our toes Do we find ourselves alone dark roads Take the highway home. In between the whispers slipping from cracked asphalt I'm counting seconds on twisted fingers, imperfect teeth, calloused feet. How many steps come between the expectations of wanting of being seeing in soft silence. When the lights go out are we finally home?
everyone's got a story like that by the-chemical-factory, literature
Literature
everyone's got a story like that
ink spills like blood and
hasty heartbeats burst
through your chest
they say
come out
they say
come drink
and you never used to need an excuse
but now you're old enough to know better
your parents didn't
have the stomachs
to show you how
the world really spun
so you learned it all
on your own
there were
no hands
on your shoulders
leading the way
there were just hands
in other places
unwelcome
and
nothing lasts
that old, aged
stick-and-poke
on your leg
will remind you
of that
still you
commit to each
memory
commemorate each
memory
and you can
find meaning
in all the
idiosyncrasies but
you can no longer
welcome
Do you remember
eating bananas by the pool/
the clinking of bottle rockets
nestled inside the neck
of a stolen O’ Douls?
Summer in the hills
was wild & green,
& us, we were
caught somewhere
in between,
growing up.
The days are longer
when they tell you,
it is too late.
Too late to fix it all;
put it in a neat box—
Somewhere safe,
where all your clothes
are bleached and stain free.
They give scholarships
to the summer girls,
while the winter girls
draw lines in the snow,
through the fields of
their hips, & the bows
beneath their lips.
Here, success is
simple arithmetic.
Grow and sow,
2.5 kids and gated homes.
Summer
was it worth it
when you laid on the floor massaging
muscles worked like taffy
when your eyes melted static down your cheeks
over your tired hands
how I slept on the couch
while the tv muffled stories of 15-year-olds getting shot
stealing milk cartons from the corner store
was it worth it
when we emptied our wallets
of sticky bills pried from tables
the endless chatter of a dinner rush
that background music
emptied our wallets of all
the nights that spun into mornings
as we quietly broke our spines
to build our own liferaft
was it worth it
when I rode the bus home crying
in the dark
showered the grease from my flesh
and saw shattered glass
Six years ago I caught a dragonfly on the brink of death.
Wrapped his fragile body in green silk,
hid him away in a memory box from his now forgotten world
I would sometimes visit him,
just to see a glimpse of frozen beauty.
It’s been awhile now,
And all that is left has turned to dust.
I used to be able to look into your eyes,
But now I cannot seem to get past my own eyes.
You told me once, forever and always,
But words are meaningless and forgettable
And beauty no longer exists in death:
It is cold and unrecognizable.
I watched my father die on a windy Autumn day;
Summer still ebbing, pulsing through the air.
He was,
But he n
The Atheist and the Stars by Ch-Ch-Cherry, literature
Literature
The Atheist and the Stars
Sometimes, I go out at night
– as a woman –
(alone, river-cold and sober)
and I watch which stars I can see
through the haze of highway lights.
Sometimes, I simply stare
and slip my dreams between
shooting stars, comets, and jet planes.
Sometimes, it hits me
that every human (every fossil, every bacterium)
has looked upon these stars.
That moon Cleopatra saw, besieged in Egypt;
the same one Jesus saw above a glowing Rome
as nothing more than a boy.
And if these stars have not changed,
neither have we—
the universe moves in its own time,
like a lumbering giant.
We move in increments;
we have changed so much,
but
the basement and the partisans by Emmaessence, literature
Literature
the basement and the partisans
I experienced my share of earlier dreams that I have just awoken from
I heard, I saw, in stock footage montage the coming of the plucky partisans
the great resistance fighters….
Within the dank basements I saw a dead doll
and a dying boy….
The next room over, a group of sobbing gangsters
that can find neither seating nor comfort….
they mere suffer a series of pratfalls….
one of the fiends takes to escapings
in first person, high speed runnings
which leave me, simply a witness
entirely out of breath….
I take to a vehicle
and begin driving, despite in reality
I am unable….
in the subconscious, with
They say roses weep for beauty
But everything you touch turns to dust.
Time is like a hidden messenger we uncover,
like the words,
not yet written on our tombstones.
Just one more chance to make it right,
but we will never find the time.
I am restless and unwell in my dreams,
I am the starving artist of my own being,
dripping a dull paint brush,
Across these visions within my reveries.
We are given as gifts,
wrapped up with withering bows.
There is no instruction manual to encompass pain,
So we take pills to feel again.
If only it were as simple as “to be”
Would that bring you back to me?
i.
you called me last night
a poem on the edges of your lips
something you wanted to press against me
like an imprint.
it was a poem
about a monster
and a small girl screaming for help
but no-one knew
whether she was calling
to
on the behalf
or because of
the monster.
you said, softly and solemnly
that you'd never considered
so many possibilities.
i laughed and said i believed in all three
isn't that a contradiction, you asked,
and i just held the phone
silently
wanting to scream out a no
but not daring.
ii.
the next day my parents sit me down
at the dinner table
to discuss my future.
do i want to be a mathematician
or a poet?
they leave t