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221 · Aug 2018
normal/abnormal
Cheryl Aug 2018
Where's your head at
(song stuck in my head)
Where my head is at
is
this rabbit hole of upside down thinking
What does it feel like to go crazy?
Do we get warnings or just ****** through
like the air we're made of
this tenuous hold on reality, on normal
how close we are to being un, ab
220 · Oct 2018
Speak your truth
Cheryl Oct 2018
Speak your truth, like it's easy, like it wants to crawl up your throat and jump from your mouth, to splatter and splash everyone and everything
Speak your truth, like you do, like you will, let it soak through your skin like so much sweat
It's not easy to open, to pull back the sheet metal, your hands will blister and bleed, but pull through the fear, because you're there underneath, dressed only in your truth
216 · Nov 2018
don't ask why
Cheryl Nov 2018
can't sleep
my head full of him again
so I pull up the link
hear you quietly singing Molly into my ear
strumming your guitar
and it makes me smile
I think you might be the answer
at least you might
and that's enough for now
once more into the fray? Feeling brave, and also scared. Too soon, I know.
215 · Jun 2018
Hole-y
Cheryl Jun 2018
I'm a human hole, a whole human.
Maybe we're all these holes, big gaping holes of want and need
We can't fill it so we hide it, under clothes, under beds, wherever we can fit it
It's always empty, always yawning, always wanting more
But hidden we can put on a big smile, keep your attention elsewhere           
  look up here
                                                         no over there
don't look right at me

It would be good, I think, if we could show each other our holes
poke a finger in, see what it feels like, push our bodies through, see if we can all fill each other up and be un holey
holy
complete
212 · Jul 2018
the horror
Cheryl Jul 2018
do you see that?
over there reflected in the window
what is that?
Behind me in the mirror
I feel hot breath on my neck
but something tells me not to turn around
it's just the warm breeze
keep going forward and don't turn around

sometimes I think I can hear it
making odd sounds that
seem hissed through a smiling mouth
if there is a mouth
I wouldn't know because
I never turn around, look under the bed
but it's in the corner of my eye
then it's gone
It hides in the horizon of my memories
in the shadows then it disappears in the light
or only hides better
but I know it's there
behind us all, waiting to lap us up
while we go about our meaningless business

the ones who do turn around, who look behind the door
we know them when we see them
but we pretend there's something wrong
something broken about them
because admitting they're right
means we have to turn around, face the thing

that's really only time itself
watching us waste it, waiting to lap us up
211 · Jun 2018
hard/soft
Cheryl Jun 2018
She popped another into her mouth and closed her eyes.
The chocolate melted into an explosion of warm sweetness and it was another step away from him.
She knew he liked her hardness, where she was close to the skin, her shoulders and hips.
His hands almost never ventured to the softness.
He'd told her he didn't like lush women, soft women.
He'd met her at a particularly not soft time in her life but he didn't seem to understand it was temporary.
She was built on hedonistic passions, sensory excess, too much of every single good thing.
She wasn't going to change any of that.
Ebb and flow, my body changes.
205 · Jun 2018
body language
Cheryl Jun 2018
Easing in
Slow and deliberate
I know where I'm going
Familiar place but foreign
I don't speak the language
But I get by
Exploring the terrain with my eyes and hands and mouth
I relax into the slow and steady pace 
I can see the perfection through the haze and smoke
Determined, I continue to my destination
I'm coming
203 · Nov 2018
ready or not
Cheryl Nov 2018
full disclosure
I hold some secrets
full disclosure
I don't think I'm ready for this.

But your ghost ship
tempts me beyond all reason
and I have permission to board
eh, it makes sense to me.. ready for the weekend! ;)
202 · Oct 2020
ambivalence
Cheryl Oct 2020
Close enough
Is close enough
Enough?
199 · Oct 2018
plans to forget
Cheryl Oct 2018
I don't know where you are right now
but I can see your face, the way you push your hair back
I love your face
and I don't know
maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should be trying to forget
and I will later today
try I mean
and try to forget that tonight I should be wrapped in your arms, in your bed
but right now I'm thinking of your face and how lovely you are
190 · Oct 2018
that song from Rent
Cheryl Oct 2018
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
in my head before I can collect my thoughts
a timer, tick tock, tick tock
my life the hands on a clock
moving faster now

why do I care
I'm getting what I came for
I don't get to decide when, I never did
song stuck in my head, it's hopeful, I'm hopeful, just realizing time is short :)
181 · Aug 2018
wishy washy
Cheryl Aug 2018
I'm not sure which is true
Those days I don't care or
These days that I do

Are all those kisses
Trying to convince me
Or trying to convince you
180 · Feb 2019
;
Cheryl Feb 2019
;
both of them
have the same tattoo

it's not that I like my boys
broken
but rather men who know
that they can break
and put themselves back together again
I always love getting to know new people, their stories
180 · Oct 2018
24 hours
Cheryl Oct 2018
I made it that far
did not reach out
stretching further all the time
I'm getting better
bit by bit
giving up your drug
hit by hit
180 · Nov 2018
drink you
Cheryl Nov 2018
so hot you're almost steaming
dark and brooding
I love how you fill my mouth
as you tickle the back of my throat
you taste a little sweet
and a little spicy if I'm honest
that flavor that I've never found anywhere else
I hold you in my hands
I feel your heat, your possibility
I wrap my body around you
and take you in
get your minds out of the gutter.. it's coffee...
174 · Jul 2018
(not) young love
Cheryl Jul 2018
I can't know how your mind works any more than I can read it
We learned lessons, that love is this ownership
this “you are mine” *******
but no one is anyone's
we are beings, being, existing, trying to get through this life
and we bump into each other
sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesn't

I can't make you be a thing for my use
to give me what I want, to make me feel what I want to feel
those are my responsibilities alone
alone
I guess that's where it comes back to
but I don't need you to raise babies
we're past that
biologically there's no reason for us to hold on to just each other
And you can't be here whenever I need you, you're there when you can be
you are not mine, and I am not yours
173 · Jun 2018
Eighties
Cheryl Jun 2018
It sounds silly and like a teenage crush

you're Sweet Valley High paperbacks
and Sassy magazine

you're 12 free cassettes and the journal under my bed
The Cure and everlasting days at the community pool

you're all the things my heart invented late one afternoon
at the end of summer
when everything is baked and brown and you think things will always be that way

You're the way things change when you don't want them to
172 · Dec 2018
anticipation, finally
Cheryl Dec 2018
Fresh page, fresh year
I've scrolled down to a white screen
Fingers on keys
Ready to strike
Can't wait to see what happens next
169 · Nov 2018
hope
Cheryl Nov 2018
strange creature, this hope
it creeps up behind you
and tickles your spine
you swat it away
but like a determined cat
it winds around your ankles
demanding your attention
151 · Jun 2018
gaming
Cheryl Jun 2018
I lay traps and you hit the trip wires 
bare skin, bare sin, radiating heat
I want to rage, slam my fists against your chest, backspace it out, anything
But there's no going back now.
he wouldn't let me play him, I'm good at it and he wouldn't let me..
149 · Jun 2018
what I meant to say
Cheryl Jun 2018
My head on your shoulder
my line of vision your lips
everything inside becomes mercury and flows
warm and thick and heavy

My wine marinated tongue can’t seem to form
the words, they keep swirling around the ooze
viscous and sweet
in a language I can’t speak

— The End —