[x]

a poem for terrible people.i want to write a poem about primroses
and how i am not a terrible person.

-

i am disordered but not disorderly. i am broken up.
i think nice thoughts like "streetlight" and "linens,"
and is there an instruction guide on happiness?
i could write one for you.

step one, paint your eyes cobalt blue.
step two, hang fireworks from coat hangers.
step three, turn into a dandelion. blow away.

my heart tries to escape from my throat. okay,
i am guilty in ways that you cannot tell anyone,
ever, not even imaginary best friends. or real ones.
or myself. freud says i am an iceberg, but i don't
know if he means i am full of repressed though

Everything Must EndI'm sorry. I'd like to be miserable and alone for a while.
I'm sorry I can't be with you. I'd like to be unhappy with someone else.
I'm sorry, I'm in love with an idea. Which isn't you.

"I'm sorry"

-

You drove four hours here every
other weekend (sometimes more)
and you watched CNN every night,
and played boggle and scrabble and
shitty video games so that maybe
I would love you again.

I know you tried. I did too.

Just maybe not as hard.

-

You learned that it's not your fault.
And that maybe you can be okay.
And that you can be loved.

But best of all,
you miraculously stayed alive.

I learned to cry my guts out.
And that I

interstate 81.there's a metal star that is wasting away on a hill overlooking interstate 81. it blends in with the surrounding area; you can't really even see it unless you know it's there.
and no one does.
i like to think that it is a signboard from god, and i make tiny little prayers on it. my religion is in curling wires and burned out light bulbs, and my lord is the same colour as the sky and the treetops. honestly, i believe that rusting metal has as much a chance as anything for inspiring faith.

there's a deer lying broken on the side of the road. it's sprawled in a shallow ditch with its four legs splayed awkwardly, hooves plowing tiny furrows in

the soccer game.the thing is, i need
the deer to mean something.

-

i go to the soccer game and smile
and nod while something furious
inside of me is screaming.
a deer appears while the sun
is setting and it's like a scene
from a movie: green grass and gold rays
that spread out, tingeing our feet
with one last bit of wednesday.
everyone watches the deer and makes
noises of appreciation and i look
around and i think to myself
"okay, this is it, i am happy."

-

the deer is watching me and i try
to decide if it's a metaphor.
i want the deer to be death, see,
to represent fucking or blacking
out or apathy or loneliness.

someone does something

trilobite.look:
don't ask me to prove to you that evolution is real,
because i lost the notebook with the proof written
out in pen. i could try to sum it up for you anyway,
about how i didn't used to love you and then one day
i did and how whales used to have legs.

also i was once a flower or a seven year old
and my hands didn't know how to hold yours
or how to draw sunsets and make sandcastles.

evolution was you one year ago saying i was perfect,
that i should never change myself for anyone.
now you say that you are trying to fix me,
which means that perfect things could always
be trying harder. and that's evolution.

i'm tired of my hair

paper cranes and picket fencesi am folding you one thousand paper cranes because it is all we have left.

legend says that if i fold one thousand paper cranes, i will get a wish. i could wish for a pair of iridescent wings or an ocean in a teacup or just to finally be happy again, but i don't want any of that--with every crane i fold i am imagining you. one crane for the circles under your eyes, one crane for your jutting ribs, one crane for every seizure.

i love you and you're dying and i will run out of paper trying to fold your broken pieces into birds.

-

you drew me a picture of us in the future.
our houses were next door to each other and a white picket fence sep

Fourth of September.1.

I am writing a poem about my birthday and candles and alcohol and dead people.
And how I have a really good imagination and every time I walk by that stop sign I see the car slamming into her and spreading her across the asphalt and every time the lights flicker I imagine his brain swelling against the confines of his skull and every time I walk in the front door I am reminded that my baby brother is dead.

And balloons.
I am writing a poem about balloons and dead people.

2.

It is the fourth of September and I am full of longing. I want bare knees and raw elbows, untied shoes, green grass that bites into the tender palms of my hands.

serbian mermaid.in five years i want to move to georgia
or serbia or atlantis and start a family,
name my children after odd numbers
and teach them russian lullabies and
the art of manipulating those you love.

in five years i want to marry you, but
i don't know if you like odd numbers,
or even if you like me all that much.
maybe you'd like me if i tell you
that i'm a mermaid, but i'm not
and you can always tell when i am lying.

in five years i want to be seventeen,
but wishes don't work like that.
i tried.

in five years i want to be on a plane
and i want the plane to crash
into the ocean and i want everyone
to be okay except me, but if i w

MirageYou know how you broke me,
but maybe you don't want to know,
or maybe you just don't care,
but I do.

You've been a mirage to me
for these last two years.

A veritable paradise,
always in sight but
perpetually out of reach.

And I know what I've done seems stupid but
when you are dying in the desert
you walk toward anything that looks like water
even though as you get closer and closer
you start to realize that it's probably nothing
you keep fucking walking because
you need it to be something.

And now that I'm finally close enough,
I'm forced to realize you aren't really there.

That you've never really been there.

fog.have you ever driven through
a fog so thick that you can part it
with your fingers? a fog so dense
that you stick your hand through
the car window and watch it disappear?

these special fogs press
heavy on your eyes and ears,
fill the dips of your collarbone,
quiet the murmurs living
inside your throat.

before i drove through this mountain
and through this fog there were bills
to pay and children to teach, people
i hated and people i loved. there were mental
disorders and electrocardiograms. fears.

now there is only the positioning
of my hands. a steering wheel. a whisper
in my ear that says "drive carefully."
a cliff a

kitestrings.you confessed that when you were little you would pull apart monarch butterflies because they were much too beautiful--
so beautiful that they made you feel uneasy.

(you always did call me the most beautiful thing you'd ever known.)

it's almost december now, and the only reason i wish you were here is so you could make snow angels and i could rip off their wings.

---

you wanted a kite for your birthday, so i got you one that was shaped like a bat and we took it to the beach, watched it crash into the surf over and over until it was bent and broken. i rescued it from the tide and surfaced dripping saltwater -- you told me i looked like t

amor de lejos.you used to blow into my ear while i was
trying to fall asleep.

i'd laugh and pull off both of our shirts, kiss
you chest and ears and eyelids until neither
of us could breathe. afterwards you'd sleepily
call me your little snuggle puppy, curve your
body around mine, and just when you'd close
your eyes i'd laugh and blow into your ear.

we never used to have any change because
we'd go downtown and feed the parking meters
by hand, like they were curious metal monsters.
you could never resist helplessness, which is
probably why you love me.

i used to make up songs about your socks.
i used to rub your back in front of your pare

being in love.it's like when you were five, when your pet rabbit died
and you learned that nothing good lasts.

it's like the time you dropped him off at his house to watch tv
before you drove yourself to the emergency room, sobbing.

it's like the first time you saw your kindergarten teacher cry.

it's like ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes. ashes.

it's like when he went too far, and he said, "is this okay?"
and you said, "no," but it didn't matter.

it's like when he said, "but i want you."

it's like the number seven, or rubies.

it's like when you almost drowned in the pool in north carolina
and when you looked up through the

SorryI hate it that the
closer I get to you the
more I hurt inside

A Near MissI Almost Kissed You

You were right there
in front of me
looking in my eyes,
lips slightly open like
you may have been
about to say something.

It happened in my head
in a split second
like words do
before you say them.

Usually things like that
happen before you can
realize how dumb they are.

It didn't, though.
Not this time.

It isn't like it would really
be anything new for me.
I've kissed you tons of times
in my dreams. Always with
the same terrible results.

But even my dreams
won't stop me from
nearly kissing you.

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Thank You, Slater.I used to go to the nearby campus coffee shop in the early evenings, armed with a pen, a blank notebook, and writer's block. The sense of loneliness was unspoken but well accounted for.

I always shared coffee-counterspace with the same boy, who never smiled or talked and who had a penchant for bedhead and argyle sweaters. He liked to lean back on his stool, balancing precariously as he read novels, and I liked to pretend I wasn't watching him watch me. We coexisted in quiet companionship, thrived quietly under fluorescent lighting which sometimes caught his thick-framed glasses.

His novels changed while my notebook remained the same; his do

fog.have you ever driven through
a fog so thick that you can part it
with your fingers? a fog so dense
that you stick your hand through
the car window and watch it disappear?

these special fogs press
heavy on your eyes and ears,
fill the dips of your collarbone,
quiet the murmurs living
inside your throat.

before i drove through this mountain
and through this fog there were bills
to pay and children to teach, people
i hated and people i loved. there were mental
disorders and electrocardiograms. fears.

now there is only the positioning
of my hands. a steering wheel. a whisper
in my ear that says "drive carefully."
a cliff a

heart crossed.

"who's that kid?" i ask, pointing at the boy whose hair cannot decide if it is red or gold. he holds a basketball in his small hands, bouncing it, once, twice, before putting it through the hoop in a perfect arc.

"james," the counselor responds, and leans closer. "he's a foster kid, you know."

i don't know.

the boy turns at that moment and catches me watching him. unthinkingly i form my thumbs and index fingers into a heart and flash it at him. he nods to his teammates and leaves the court, climbing the bleachers to where i sit.

"did you see my shot?" he asks.

"yes." pause. "i'm kelsey."

"i know," he says, and runs back to his game.

at

march 24th, 2008.there is a chinese proverb that says your teeth will fall out if you tell lies.

i used to always dream my teeth would crumble from my mouth and lay glittering on the street like coins. i used to dream that the slightest touch jarred them loose, knocked them from my jaw leaving only swells of broken tissue behind. i used to dream of rivulets of blood streaming from the corners of my mouth, of thirty two pieces of myself lying naked on the ground, thirty two tooth fairies that would never come. i used to dream of screaming.

"you know," said my psychology TA, "to dream of losing one's teeth is very common. it typically means that you're concer

the soccer game.the thing is, i need
the deer to mean something.

-

i go to the soccer game and smile
and nod while something furious
inside of me is screaming.
a deer appears while the sun
is setting and it's like a scene
from a movie: green grass and gold rays
that spread out, tingeing our feet
with one last bit of wednesday.
everyone watches the deer and makes
noises of appreciation and i look
around and i think to myself
"okay, this is it, i am happy."

-

the deer is watching me and i try
to decide if it's a metaphor.
i want the deer to be death, see,
to represent fucking or blacking
out or apathy or loneliness.

someone does something

waiting.he has been there for so long that the girl sometimes wonders if he is part of the beach, if the seaweed and shells fuse themselves to his ankles at night and grow over his browned legs like ivy. he is always still, so still, eyes focused on something distant in the waves that the girl can't quite see, though she tries. the man has a face like a creased paper bag and she finds herself wishing that she could see inside his head.

she watches him all day from the corner of her eye but no one ever joins him in his vigil. he is alone in casting shadows that grow longer and longer as the sun sets. the girl wonders what it is like to be so alone an

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sticks and stones.

by ~estallidos, Apr 23, 2010, 11:01:17 AM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

broken people like to write poems about how they are broken.
they like to turn people into words because no one's heart
has ever been punctured by parentheses, but by god it's not
for lack of trying. in a poem, broken people can have hangnails
and they never have to brush their hair because the tangles
symbolize the time they lost their virginity and there are no mirrors
unless they write about one and force themselves to look into it.

-

broken people also like to use cliche metaphors
but that is okay because when you are broken
sometimes cliche metaphors are all you have left.

"i am a rose and you think i'm beautiful so you
keep ramming me into your eye, thorn first."

"i am uncut grass and you roll around in me,
joyful, shaking, but when you stop to catch
your breath and look at your forearms you
see that they're covered in hundreds of tiny cuts."

"i am a dandelion. i don't know why but goddamnit
i am tender and damaged and i've already written
a poem where i've mentioned turning into a dandelion
so i probably am one. also, fuck off."

-

broken people are good at diagnosing themselves
but bad at fixing themselves. sometimes they are left-handed.

-

i read this story about a man who was shipwrecked
on a desert island. he used driftwood and conch shells
to spell out "HELP" on the shoreline. then he starved to death and died.

broken people know what the sand felt like beneath
his fingernails and what he saw every time he closed his eyes.

-

i am broken, and once i broke someone.

they told me, "if you were a dandelion
then i would pick you and freeze dry you
and keep you forever and people would ask
why i have a weed in my house and i'd say,
'because she makes me happy.'"

sticks and stones.by ~estallidos

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

-

~~joy 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

Mood: Love

~JessiicaFox Feb 10, 2013

That was amazing. Truly, I cannot even begin to describe how much I loved that

Reply

~Veloxsica Aug 23, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Beautiful, and powerful :')

Reply

~Stich-girl76 May 20, 2012 Student General Artist

Most beautiful poem I have ever read.
Just amazing.

Reply

~estallidos May 26, 2012 Professional Writer

thank you!

Reply

~Stich-girl76 May 28, 2012 Student General Artist

Welcome!

Reply

~alex-mg Apr 4, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

This must be like the 100th time i've read this..
and still AWESOME!!

Reply

~estallidos Apr 5, 2012 Professional Writer

thank you!

Reply

*SilverRosess Mar 28, 2012 Student Digital Artist

I just cried a little.
Third day in a row.
First time they are not sad tears.

Reply

~estallidos Mar 28, 2012 Professional Writer

i am so, so glad

Reply

~MadeleineArtist Mar 21, 2012 Student General Artist

you make me want to keep living. and that is a hard thing to do. thank you, simply put, thank you.

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