[x]

1With liquid bones and sunlight hair
I've drunken myself down to a watery mess
of spilled words and ugly mysteries.
I find myself in you,
and I cringe at the notion that maybe today
I should love myself.

simple math.it was the strangest thing to be complaining about, not liking
feeling -this- human. feeling so fucking vulnerable and exposed, and not
understanding anything that is going on but knowing that its actually
just chemicals that we’ve given names too
too human
too exposed
and far too fucking weak to handle the tidal wave of shitty chemical reactions you
bring with you.

Cut-throat.When I was young
I spat daggers at the boys
who jeered on street corners
at the girls who walked by,
summer dresses swaying,
bare thighs.

Now that I am old,
my mouth is a fist-fight
knife-fight waiting
to happen.

Cut-throat girl
with a gun for a tongue
and a war zone shell.

to be a floristcut me.
press your metal into my spine.
thread it gracefully
along my insides and out
the nape of my neck.
twirl it gently (don't
hurt yourself) around my skin.

boast proudly, how you shaped me,
how you spun me in your arms,
how you affixed my gaze upright...
how you made me look so perfect
while i slowly turned and died.

(c)loves and (c)loversi am no artist's muse,
i am no ship's harbor

i am no hero's weaker heel,
i am no good earth's flower

i have never been your lover
nor have i ever kissed you,
- not even once

though i dream of you (c)love-scented,
with lips shaped like a lucky (c)lover's-
kissing you and to be kissed by you
over and
over

i can never profess,
not even confess

note:
even to myself

i stay standing, (b)raving the cold nights,
pretty much batty and bootless

yet again,

the absence of you weighs metric tons on my
ringing ear,
shivering nape, and
repressed should

CleaveI could lay my head down
and sleep like the mad;
I could unglue every thought of you
ensnared
or inferred
if I must.
The way you unfurl at me, unfurl and unfurl
like a thick houseplant choking my room;
I can't dream in here, with you, there is no air. You speak;
your words
have gorged themselves on me.

The audacity of you
to see me in your light,
this is
incandescence of a different kind.
Spots left on my forearm
from your white-hot grip, they fade
like awareness...
again, I've been overcome.

....Have I stared too long
into the light? Everywhere I look,
you are an after-image.
I hate how I mimic
the swing of your arm wh

perfection1

my spirit
catches on a failure.

it doesn’t move
and nothing more is possible.

2

i’m in love with the Black Madonna on my wall,
the scar that runs down her breast
the way she’s sewing her suicide wrist
looking dutifully 50s mannequin
and balancing on red stilettos
in a white silk slip
while tree limbs are tearing at her calves
and crows are picking at her empty womb;

a giant
unplugged
heart,
suffocating in the background
as her crest.

no one will
suffer
like she does.

in - these dead lungs will be pink again - outgray black
bluish somber sky
night time laconic love these
gossamer sighs salve scars
across stretched neck, scraped in
collar bone hollow, thin-traced
along chest rising at the touch
of tender lips sweeping
soundlessly as space
over bruised body trembling
under down cover
comforter
...
a dream
fated to be unremembered
in the glow of
blue-tinted orange morning
december

Like watercolor raindropsLonesome people wander by like watercolor raindrops
Spilled from torn tapestries of multi-colored silk,
And I find you here among them,
Glowing with sword drawn, sweat-stinging
Ire
Wondering, why aren’t I whole again;
Why’s my heart not on fire?
No one knows, least of all we
Who wander by like anti-matter spearheads
Piercing all that stands against
What we want
And who we are,
Singing like Joan of Arc on the witch’s pyre,
What is it you wanted, then?
To feel your heart catch fire?

Goodnight Enigmatic SongShe was the song you hear and, at first blush, don't like.
Well, you don't know how you feel about it so you keep listening in an attempt to discover how exactly you feel and then you reach the end of the song and you realize, you don't like it; you love it.
That was Grace.
She was my coworker and she was my friend.
We carpooled together, I drove and she slept most of the way.
"Don't get much sleep at night, do you?" I asked her, catching those drooping lids mid-descent.
"Insomnia, love."
She looked out the window streaked with rain; it spoke in percussive touches filling the car with quiet overcast conversation.
I felt the warmth of her smile in the corner of my eye. The blur of her hand reached at the window to feel the cold of the droplets.
"When I was a girl, I used to race these. I thought it was funny the fat ones always won," she giggled and I imagined her as a little girl in the passenger seat then, legs too short to reach so kicking, and hair messed in the bac

1000 Daysi folded you in half at your spine
and pushed you as far as i could into the coals.
now you're back again with ashes in your eyes
and your skin full of holes.

i should have wrapped you in gasoline
and scattered you over Hell's half acre.
i'm not your tin soldier, and you're just another paper dancer.

fine print falls out of your mouth like broken bits of glass,
these ransom notes written in code are your latest fashion,
and i want nothing from you.

white coffin collar boneI traced her collarbone with my thumb, dipping into the valley it formed – deep enough to hold her bird soul.
“What are you doing?” She asked because we were in the middle of conversation when my eyes had wandered from her fern-green eyes, over her sunset red and rounded cheeks, slowly down her birch-tree neck. My hand impulsively finished the wandering, right along a branch, her sweet, exposed collarbone.
“I’m…sorry,” I lowered my hand. The last bit of hope in my heart crept into my mind like a child searching for comfort in his mother’s arms. My mind embraced the tiny hope born from her not moving away at my unprovoked caress.
We had been talking so candidly and she was whispering about her wishes and her "silly" wants and how I was the last person she should be speaking so intimately with so maybe I panicked. Maybe what I saw nestling feathered in her collarbone wasn’t her soul hiding away to die but only a shadow and maybe, eve

my sylvan summercrunch of leaves under careful foot
is the sound of autumn oranging red-brown leaves
this is how we loved dead things
(this is how I still love)
memories carved into bark
flesh, my dear, our summer
is trapped in the corpse of a tree --
our initials on its heart-shaped tombstone
only the greatest happiness grown cold, cuts deep enough to kill
leaving behind that ghost of you in the folds of my clothes
in my favorite musical notes
I strung together for you to wear unintentionally forever
like a trinket you stroke holding the hand of someone more permanent
still gracious how you parted from me,
soft and gentle as a leaf floating off the branch
(even your goodbyes were beautiful)
the sound of autumn
the crushing steps slowly away
redbrown orange
the color of this bruised heart at the remembrance of our
smoldering something special

door slammed, house screamedburned red hot in december
my hands in the fire place flame
my eyes on your hunger as you
crept toward me, I burned
and woke ash
in your calloused, careless palms
and you brushed them in quiet
motions upon your thighs and
I fell in fragile dust slowness
to the frozen floor, my cheek resting on
the shivering wood
and I stared at your dull thump footsteps
away from my dull thump heart
the vibrations loud in my ear
muffled the ugliness of the world
death is the sound of the door creaking
shut and I am frost bitten gone
december cold

summer homei've rearranged the rooms of my chest
to make room for you.
i won't say it didn't hurt
to make myself your Adam;
removing rib
after rib
until you found a comfortable perch.

there, beneath my unguarded breast,
you construct your nest of
every lovely thing you've come to love
about me
(while the rest of me flaps wildly
like moth wings against the cold walls
of my exposed heart).

i should've known you'd leave
when winter froze me.
don't apologize [for the ache].
you kept the beautiful bits of me
warm
(while they died).

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I Modestly Trudge OnMuck plastered and carcass ridden:
the earth is a burial ground
where humanity went extinct long ago.

And we, the souless wanderers left,
we hope for a new meaning, a new life...
We hope, and we pretend desperately
that hope is enough

to keep us human.

I'll Have YouB,

I love you.

I love you with an aching breast,
and a twist in my gut -
eyes brimming with "please, just, wait..."

I love you with a broken heart, because I
never learned how to be whole.

I love you with clichés.
I love you with throbbing poetry.

I love you with everything I have, I
just don't have much.

I wanted to write you something, anything
that would help you understand. But I don't
understand.

I am pieces; I am grasping.

I am still waiting for my ship to come in.

I'm scared.
I'm scared of everything.
But I am most a afraid of being without you.
Not being alone.
Alone is easy.
Being without you.

Because two and a half

Fall From GraceShe awoke to the jangle -
her silver spoon falling with the
rain in spades;

she learned to call a tunnel
home, and never missed the
irony in her name:

Charity

Over LunchPour me another cup of coffee
on the days
I'm cold in all the wrong ways -

when the new summer sun
isn't warming the winter chill
that has nested in my bones
for months;

& the suddenness of spring,
isn't making up for the
loneliness of grey days
and the sunsets spent
waiting.

Sometimes I forget that
poetry wasn't meant to be
a light read over lunch,

and neither was I.

These Little DeathsInhale.

You are the straw falling;
I am the camel's back.
You are the
cracks
that stay just so long
in the windshield
until it
shatters.

I'm watching you grow;
I'm aching with apprehension.
I'm counting the muscles in my stomach
as they contract,
just trying to stay sane.

Exhale.

You are the release,
the sun setting on a perfect day.
I am the horizon,
welcoming you in with open
arms.

You are the waves;
I am watching you grow.
I'll prepare for your breaks,
for your rises and falls:
And I will learn
how to surf
yet.

I Know My SoulLimitless lotus, free soul;
time has fled
I don't know where.

The hungry look,
windswept -
see me dance standing still.

Bronze day, desert soul;
late autumn thoughts:
positive sky for the negative people -

deserts can be beautiful.

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Submitted: January 4
Submitted with: Sta.sh Writer

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Architecture

by *RiseandBe, Jan 4, 2013, 1:14:54 PM
Literature / Poetry / Transgressive / Free Verse

Yesterday,

I did not just break down;

It was a demolition.

Several carefully, methodically

placed explosives,

and a tumbling of floors-

one by one.

Today,

I swept away the crumblings,

the debris of stories-

walked and told- twenty-three

high, staircases I have

climbed.

Tomorrow,

I rebuild-

each detail, meticulous-

from the ground, up.

In another twenty-three stories

I hope to have something

I am proud of.

Architectureby *RiseandBe

Literature / Poetry / Transgressive / Free Verse

©2013 *RiseandBe

On turning 23.
Not exactly autobiographical.
I fully intend on incorporating details from the previous structure.

Also,

Day 4

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`MagicalJoey Jan 19, 2013 Writer

The way you have described the building oneself within this piece is superb.

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*RiseandBe Jan 19, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you!

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`MagicalJoey Jan 19, 2013 Writer

Pleasure

Reply

Mood: Wow!

~SurreptitiousBloomer Jan 9, 2013 Student Writer

I really think this poem is beautiful. The imagery of the poem was simple and yet it has an impact

Reply

*RiseandBe Jan 9, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thanks so much!

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~CassielFaded Jan 8, 2013

The story of breaking down and building again. And again and again and again. Beautiful.

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*RiseandBe Jan 9, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you!

Reply

~CandyKnickerbocker Jan 4, 2013

I really liked this little poem, it has something to say about forgiving yourself and learning from your mistakes.

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*RiseandBe Jan 5, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Certainly. Thank you!

Reply

`vespera Jan 4, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I like the idea of getting to rebuild

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