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Carsyn Smith May 2014
It's cold down here,
the white cushions and blankets do nothing
to safeguard my withering body
from Earth's cold claws.
Remember when we used to sit in Summer's sun?
Ankle deep in baked sand
as the waves lulled us.
Remember how you held my hand the first time?
Side by side, we sat on that empty beach
our hands absentmindedly digging towards the core.
It wasn't until I was distant that I felt your fingers,
timid at first,
then coiling like a grape vine 'round a fence.
You remember, don't you?
It hasn't been too long?
You told me,
in that raining back alley,
that you wouldn't let me go.
You told me,
as I held your hand like a lifeline,
that I was going to be okay.
I kept listening,
through the rain and your tears,
for the sound of running footsteps
and the clinking of money in my purse as he ran.
Did you catch him?
Will he never hurt anyone again?
Please tell me,
so that I may feel some warmth in eternity.
Prompt: Message from beyond the grave.
Sombro Nov 2015
Nothing hurt like
Finding you another time kissing
Nothing felt like
You when you weren't there
Making charcoal of my heart.

Nothing turned like
My stomach when I found
Your sick love letters
Half for me, half for him.

Nothing scarred like,
Leaving when I did,
Nothing broke like
The headlights on my fortune 'van'
You and I felt
Like a rope that pulled at my neck
I was leashed and leaded
Heavy feet aplod

Nothing happened when
I came back
Nothing familiar felt when
I had changed so much
From the pain
Different words flowed
From my cleaner lips
And little passed when
I saw you once more.

But we talk
But we see one another
But I turn aside
But you don't,
I see your smile
Your dew dropped laughter
Perhaps the morning cold
Froze the heat within you.

Nothing flickered when
We looked deep in each other's eyes
Nothing flew when
Words skipped between us
Nothing sparked when
You took my hand in yours
Nothing forgotten, but
It felt so good for you to hold me again.
Wow, I made myself sad with this one. It's not even about me -  it's about a character on a tv show I'm watching! Strange where these things come from, isn't it?
Charlotte J Feb 2017
The way he looks at her
and she looks at him
makes love look so
effortless.

He doesn’t even notice
how he is leaning in –
towards her. And how her arm is
intertwined
around his so tightly;
with such a devoted glint of comfort
and familiarity.

I hope you're on the same train.
Making the aftermath
of falling easy, the complexity simply
luminescent.
Almost allowing me to feel light.

My heart had its fair share of
lightness, brightness – heavy now but
the smiles, the laughter;
It makes me feel as if
perhaps
that is what I yearn for in The End.

But will I ever find happiness if I'm overflowing with joy?

Because the
Melancholy
of a platform sliding out-of-mind,
with You standing there debating the
tangles in your shoelaces
warms up my equally tangled,
Masochistic
heart. Because that is not granted for me (us).

Not the handholding
nor the scent of your hair
when it’s 5 a.m. and your arms
are knotted around my waist and we
waste the day, the days, days in my bed.
Oh, yes (please).

No. I can't get that.
I remind myself:
"I don't need that."
I step onto the platform.
I mind the gap.
I dare do much
But I cannot dare to
trip, stumble,
and fall.

For You. (I already have.)
ryn Apr 2017
.
                    Time,
                    space
           ­         and everything in between.

                    Heartaches,
                    tea­rs
                    and secrets that don't come clean.

                    Gambols,
                    laughter­
                    and smiles beaming keen.

                    Deep thoughts,
                    aloneness
                    and the dark places we've been.

                    Handholding,
                    carel­ess hugs
                    and ready shoulders to lean.

                    Reckless stabs,
                    impulsive jabs
                    and caustic words we don't mean.

                    Contentment,
                    count­ing blessings
                    and hope we can glean.

                    You,
                    me
        ­            and everything in between.


.
Hersch Rothmel Jul 2015
as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we become aware of the possibility
that, in fact, we always live with our ancestors
as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we start to contrive
the raw material
to obtain our fibers
as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we start to cultivate the insights of how those fibers can be woven into strands
that when interlocked with other fibers
create a collective blanket, untold histories

No, not a patchwork-quilt, not a melting ***, not a salad bowl
not a room full of flags with countries we cant place on a map
and full of people WE can’t help but fetishize
no, No, NO
this is an interwoven stitch
this is a tattered rag
that has been used to wipe **** off of colonizer’s *******
that has been used to wipe the dripping *** off of Thomas Jefferson’s ****
as he finishes up with his Saartjie Baartman,
that has been used to hide the faces of the KKK as they drag uppity black boys down the street
and LYNCH them in carnival and spectacle
that has been soaked in Black and Brown blood on the streets of
Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, North Carolina, Milwaukee, and every other city and district in the US of KKK

This is not a handholding session with me
I am the oppressor and I must fear my own wrath
my fiber is white, my strand is white
and too many strands are white
and too many Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow strands have been bleached
or told “wait your turn to be included in the blanket"
or "be thankful we even include you in the stitching
give us a TOKEN of gratitude”
I take YOUR strands and use them to cloth MY babies while yours lie naked

The time is now
to take the clorox and gulp it down as it eviscerates our throats and consumes our souls
We don’t need anymore whitewashed histories
we dont need anymore white sheets
we don’t need to go to BED, BATH, and BEYOND
I cannot come to you with a bail full of cotton and ask you to join me in a knitting session
#IMNOTRACISTBUT…

this is not a time for diversity and multiculturalism
or the co-option of “social justice”

this is a time for Solidarity

this is a time for Liberation

this is a time for Abolition

this is a time for Insurrection

this is a time for Rebellion

this is a time for Revolution

I cannot be the leader
but I can contribute
I cannot be the voice
but I can sure has hell listen

and this is how we will transform the blanket
not with hollow words and moderate reforms
but with direct action and liberatory collaboration
by yelling the phrase “white supremacy is as American as apple pie” at the top of our lungs

not with corporate funding and 5,000 dollar a plate galas
but by dismantling the looms that have woven the threads of
Hate, ****, Land theft, and Genocide
that have woven the strands of
reservations, redlining, white flight, and gentrification
and by co-creating ones that speak to our destroyed histories
that refuse to use the bleach
even when the blanket gets *****
I would like to think that by the age of 6, i would have turned deaf, from the hands being placed on my ears to escape bullets of words. Shattering around me, i wished to grow up. By the age of 8, i knew my place and, my place knew me. I lived in a minefield, during a war i had not realised was going on. I had unbroken bones which bled from the inside, my mind was torn in to a million pieces and at 10, i didn't know what childhood was, and wished i was alone.

By 16, I fell into a man, a man who's hand it took 2 years to gain from his mother, as she sat there smoking and drinking hot water with lemon to be diet thin. Trimmed the fat a bit when we both left the country, and he got a girl pregnant in India, with twins, which she later aborted; I was in Canada, and 18 when i wished i was blind.

I followed through, travelled the world, til i was 21, became a university student, a best friend, a lesbian, and went to a foreign country were you are forced to use your goodness to be a force of good, which no-one sees as good, but as a hand out, and i lost good friends and saw bad men lose theirs, at 21, I saw the world and i was i was emotionally devoid in a climate of acclaimed peace.

By 26 i was a mother, uncontrollable love and grief flowed through me, like rain is dissolved by the streams in the hills. I picked up my smiling, beautiful child, which had became my night, noon, morning and day, and i wished i could repair the tear within my soul, to encompass all the love i had for my son; and the tear remained patched up with sellotape; I wished I had been a better child.

I lost all consciousness from 27 til 28, love turned to hate, i lost my love, and picked up a young one, if only she was to physically show me what my ex had not been telling me all along; what my ex boyfriends mother made me feel for 2 years, and the way my father left, whilst my mother was pulling me up the stairs, by my hair. At 28 I realised i had made the wrong decision.

From 28, here on out the wind blew, and it blew down to the valleys, and there i found the love of my life. We found and created an indestructible friendship and love, the first only and ever to support me and our goals, she helped me stand up to my father; who then ended our own father/daughter relationship. And not 3 months shy later, when myself and my son mouthed our love and said goodbye. We returned to an empty house. I sacrificed my grief for a small boy who cried for a non-existent person. At 29 my heart was destroyed in a slow burning bonfire.

I replaced the love with the lost, and gladly filled up my tank with lost souls of lost girls, who had lost their souls from some other lost soul, and so the cycle becomes fully reborn. I became someone i knew not of. I had a best friend, who i solely loved because she was the vat of hope i desperately needed in the darkest hour, my biggest cheerleader and my ***** compadre. I remember at 29 celebrating a birthday with 2 friends, and looking at the stars and thinking, is this the meaning of my existence? I remember feeling like the winds were about to change.

30. I had moved house, abandoned my son and old life, for a new job, for new money. I sunk like the titanic who did not see the epic gigantic proportion of iceberg that was about hit the ******* fan. I lost the best friend. Slowly through another relationship did i gleam a sensation of love. It was love, but it was demanding and childish, and i pushed her away before she even asked me to be hers;  in i might add one of the most romantic pursuits ever. She became my sons best friend, my dancing partner, she loved me so very very much, and i hated her for it, i hated her so much for loving me, because i was rightly wrong and she was wrongly right. I just turned 31, and she walked out over an argument over bike helmet. I realised, i was a product of my over endless pursuit of love perfect.

At 32, i am single, broke my back at work, i was then dismissed by that work, moved house, began recovery, had a car accident and here i am beginning again. Yet i am in love now with a man, something i have struggled with for a year, i am at my most humble, deep, profound, sense of being in love, without reciprocation than i have even been, and why........?

Well....

When i was 16 i wanted to be 30, i wanted my life to be over. I wanted the dead years to pass. I wanted the hard work to be gone and done. Not because i didn't want to live, but because i had lived so hard before i was 16, that anything else seemed to exhausting for words to even begin to create.

Except i lived it.
I learnt that love is not words, love is words.
Love is the words of your favourite song, emblazoned on a 8ft wall, that you come home to, and see as a surprise.
Love is someone letting you read your book.
Love is not the voice, the meaning, the tone, the perception or allegorical meaning.
Love is not the abuse, the abuser, their demons, their guilt or their silence.
Love is the unspoken word, the deep stare, the knowing glance, a tender reassurance, that this is ok.
Love is your hand holding mine. N.B Handholding is underrated.
Love is not possession, greed, want or desire. They are not yours, you are not theirs.
Love is invisible, yes it is, red balloons don't mean **** on one day a year.
Love is not perfect, but imperfect.
Love is ruthless, and cut-throat.
Love will burn you to the very last core of your being because you cannot contain its power.
Love is not lies, deceit, untruths, stories told to the naieve because you cannot be a lover and have to be a storyteller.
Love is truth, truth that so bitterly hurts, that you want to be porcelain and break into a million pieces, from the chest .
Love is walking, talking, and laughing, always laughing; love is a smile on a face.
Love is hard, and intolerable, it is passionate, and persistent and it is consistent. It does not break, it is not flimsly like a kite in a storm.
Love does not take offence to personal battles and rebukes of deadly warfare.
Love does not change its mind, be unsure, lack responsbility, or drinks you dry, til you are dried out and up.
Love is not ***, love is not lust, lust is not 'go on, you know you want to', love is not sorry in the morning.
Love is not the ***** all night *** sessions that keep the neighbours awake, but it is in the glory of two bodies where love can be found.
Love condemns. Love is a silent recommendation from Disney, Cathy and Heathcliffe, and Ring of BrightWater.
Love is a minefield and a forbidden playground; it is a secret garden and a theme park.
Love is not alone, and it is not together; it is not your children, or your childrens, children; It is within them and without them.
Love is not to be found on the praying may, in the clouds, in a the pew, or in the incense.
Love cries, love wails, love beats at your very chest, love is in death, love is in the birth.
Love.
Love.
Aaah, hmmm, Love, is an indeterminable force, by which, because of its very nature, no-one can define by logic, except that they will, because, what they cannot understand, they use perception of their blinded sight, deaf ears, and lost senses to put into words, something their heart cannot.
You have everything and you have no-one.
You have reason and you have none to be afraid of.
You are your past, and unfortunately, you are not.
You are your damage, your hurt and your pain, and hardest, your own responsibility.
You are worthy, and you are worthless, you have been shamed and you have been glorified.
You are your own future, your own today, and the yesterday.
And despite all the crap ******* memes,
Love is you, and you are love.

By 32, i had learnt to love myself. Inbetween the grieving, there is a silent knowledge, that by 32 i am in love, with myself.

*I wrote this as a very open outpouring of grief i am currently going through, and also an open realisation of the love within and for myself. It is one of my most open and explicit short stories of my life, and even within that there is lots that has not been recognised, because it has been shortened and reconsidered somewhere else. Thank you
Bree  Dec 2014
Worthless
Bree Dec 2014
A child of ten
I thought of sunshine and handholding
They told me I was ugly

A young girl of thirteen
I loved to go to school
They told me I was dumb

A new student at sixteen
I longed for acceptance
They exhibited their disgust for my presence

Then I learned I was worthless at seventeen
ORLA Dec 2012
I wrote you love letters out of the syrupy innocence of my childish heart,
Mawkish hopes for a future of sweaty handholding and feather-lipped kisses.
More mother than lover, I lived to shield you from the bigger laughing kids,
Because I thought that love was one short ride on the pegs of your homemade bike,
And one dance under purple glowsticks hanging from the cheap drop ceiling,
And, in the stairwell that smelled like paint and old socks, I told you so.
Turned out I wasted my one second wish on the bunny in the moon:
You woke me up with the hollow chill of sudden mere acquaintanceship,
And now you're chasing some blond girl while I'm standing in a corner, busy growing up.
To somebody that I used to know . . .
Ansley Popov Aug 2015
I'm freedom I'm pace I'm alone I'm grace I'm hardwork I'm no sleep I'm sightseeing while not leaving town I'm smiling I'm here I'm okay I'm great

You're trees you're wind you're old smells you're handholding you're just a minute late you're dads truck you're nameless  you're a mystery right now  you're everything i could never hate

Im on my way I'll find you soon I don't mind waiting for someone like you.
CR Apr 2013
there are two options when something happens that you don’t want to happen, something that changes your plans, something that takes a girl (who loves you, loves you, loves you forever like you’re sunshine) that you were going to get drunk with on a rooftop and kiss till if-and-when she fell in love and makes her into a girl whose Boyfriend Wouldn’t Like That. you can dig in your heels. you can stew and hate and surrender to the agony of we-had-all-these-plans-and-now-we-don’t. you can say I Will Never Get Over Her. you can tell your friend She Was the Only One I’ll Ever Love. you can tell yourself you have to want her forever or forget her, and you can’t forget her. you cannot ******* change your plans THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL PLANS.

or.

you can change your plans, even though they were beautiful. you can remember that she tried, and know it wasn’t enough for you but you love her more than just for her handholding. you can not-excuse her but you can forgive her. you can tell and tell and tell yourself it wasn’t right if it didn’t work, and you can believe yourself one day. in the meantime, you can have lunch with her instead of pay for dinner. you can turn her into beer and philosophy on picnic tables instead of wine in bed. you can take another girl to the rooftop who was made to love you the way a rooftop girl should love you.  you can quote books about the love you deserve because you deserve better on a rooftop, but you might deserve her at that picnic table. there are two options when something changes your plans. you can cross your arms. or you can open them.
Mosaic Oct 2015
Wired like a loaded gun
Waiting for the morning sun
Hello! How are you today

And I wonder
My love
Should I take the sun from you
Put it in a box of darkness
Like setting

I spread the ashes of a love never in love
just a circle venn diagram make believe but not Peter Pan
And love
I love you so
I am the sun
And I shine for no one

So box of darkness
Here I come

Speckled star dust farm eggs
Fresh renewed self conviction
Moon born
Phasing through to a life
Without you

Hedonism blood pulse
Still sentimental soul
Selling out to the lone wolf
Sneaky fox

Flowers tainting memories
Hand holding cheek kissing nostalgia bliss
Don't think
Of the one you will miss

Just kiss
Supernova
Little sunhat at nighttime party
Don't don't listen to the lies you whisper to yourself
You are the one you'll miss
If you don't help yourself

Feast on sin and self-righteousness
Reincarnation is second chance
Listen to the hands with the carnations outstretched
Fellow stranger with star burnt eyes
caring for those self told lies

You cheat
yourself
with handholding cypress knees bending towards
neurons collapsing
into the one who
Binary stars you
Binary stares at you
Holds you in your sleep from far away
Dream meeting past life fleeting into the now
You answer to this highschool crush pop quiz invader of reality
Who questions what color to paint the moon
Never almost drowning
But who has only ever taken a life
that belonged to them alone
relating in fictional patterns of physics
Undeniable wavelengths
colliding crashing consoling
You knew from the first eyes
that seeds of doubt would sprout in what you mislead as love
And you ask
Why not?

Hello,
        today is not tomorrow.
We were both in that room
That box of darkness
One of us bumping into the light switch
"Hey, I didn't know anyone else was here."
Rowan Jack Nov 2015
I am from a Saturday afternoon living room overflowing with the sounds of Fleetwood Mac, John Lennon and Bob Dylan.
I am from home cooked meals, roaring laughter at the dinner table and short tempered Italians.
I am from Frank Sinatra singalongs, Lifetime movies and swimming lessons from my Mimi.
I am from my Pop’s war stories, tomato picking and ***** jokes.
I am from the grandparents that didn’t want my dad and the grandparents that did.
I am from the stoic grandmother that wasn’t involved in my mom’s life and the deadbeat grandad that didn’t seem to exist.
I am from the ten years of Catholic school, plaid skirts and polo shirts.
I am from spoon-fed customs of Catholicism every day except (coincidentally) Sunday mornings.
I am from rose scented mornings because of regretted whiskey words from the night before.
I am from words muttered impulsively, apologizes not offered graciously and too many family nights turned into family fights.
I am from cigarette infused hugs, plastered smiles and “I’ll quit tomorrow”.
I am from twenty-six years of handholding, couch cuddling and kitchen dancing.
I am from goodnight kisses, chocolate chip cookies in my lunch and red heart emoji’s in a text.
I am from love and anger and happiness and remorse.
I am from memories in the making and a future unknown.

— The End —