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Steele Mar 2015
Blades of smoke pass through my hair,
Cutting; oxidising; as the smoke is slowly rising
through the tower of my power as I vainly gasp for air.

Cyanide, it seems, can comfort me a while,
as I'm breathing; screaming and repeating
smoky words into the floor's mute bathroom tile.

But my power is all gone; all wrong.
Oxidise: Cyanide.
Once more into my lungs.
I've been quitting about a month now, and **** is it hard. It shouldn't still be this hard, right? Jesus.
pat caldecott Jun 2011
Once again I return to feel the hurt the pain
Addicted to your cyanide
That’s driving me insane

Ride upon this sickening ride surf upon its tide
Feel it rotting out my brain
You are my cyanide

As a child upon the bed I’d think to stop the chain
Small doses of your cyanide
Were coursing in my vein

I didn’t know and so I ate whatever you’d provide
Given the things that you’d obtain
The bitter cyanide

Only poison in your heart things that you’d been fed
Force fed on the cyanide
Lead me where your led
Nico Reznick Jan 2017
There are no right answers.
The sky rejects the birds, turns them
over to gravity,
embedding them in the concrete and dirt.
The grit refuses to become a pearl,
just as the wound refuses to heal
and the flesh eats itself.
The market sees a sudden spike in
sales of Champagne and cyanide.
Coordinated efforts seek and fail
to curtail the rising tide of violence
in the nation's dreaming.
You realise that this crude, barbaric language
that you can't understand
is your own.
Beauty glitches and pixelates.
Frightened, furtive confessions of love
are unheard over proud, visceral
proclamations of hate.
Tongues divorce mouths.
Every now and then, a voice
inside your head says,
'Thud.'
The measures of sanity become
more quantifiable and
totally arbitrary.
The horizon
tightens
like
a noose.

It doesn't matter if this is wrong.
There are no right answers.
Spoken Word Video: https://youtu.be/wGxRvuMWCig
Don't knock what you've never tried
Lock box with a heart inside
Six shots from a forty five
Punk rock makes you come alive

Black-hawks in the clear blue sky
It's ad hoc but you can just get by
On Poprocks and cyanide
Tick-tock time to decide

What made you think that you could take me down?
The method's flawed, but the strategies sound.
What made you try to hold me back?
I hope you're ready for the counter-attack.

Backhand and you feel the heat
Grandstand 'till you take a seat
Kickstand just to keep your feet
Firsthand watch you admit defeat
Verbatim Lynnie Mar 2018
Meditating in the carnage,
my core's cyanide became
warm milk before bed. My carcass
coexisted in inconsistent comfort, that
safety untouched like internal feelings.
Unstable caramelized eyes watered down to a
wary hazelnut from lack of love, the way the
phone screen glows white to gray at 4 AM.
Aching in agony; I haven't found a person
to care for the poison within me-
I love using metaphors, similes, etc for poems.... This one took an odd turn...
All feedback is welcome!
Ann Marcaida Jan 2013
I. Neptune’s Theater


A rock spins through the universal tumbler

and its warm blue pools calcify

as turquoise Neptune in his cloudy blue bath bath

builds a lace castle with his fingertips


Sculpts a submerged eden of crimson and emerald

where painted parrots chat up cardinals

butterfly and angel fry sway with wave pulse

and foliated coral fingers beckon from arched windows.


Neptune’s children are flat and bright, spined and notched

free yet entangled in lace mesh ecosystem

beneath an array of bioluminescent stars

as a gangly pretender watches and blows bubbles.




II. Sapien Siege


The hot acidic hand of death grasps

the mesh rends and tangles

the ecosystem shattered

reef’s loosed children scream beneath planet’s stars.


Butterflies impaled

cyanide-swooning damsels

mesh-tangled angels hauled heavenward

coral to potash, corpses to coal.


The pretender to the throne blinks

rubs blurry lenses,

kicks plastic fins

and moves on to the next show


Unseeing and unaware

of the luminous filament in his wake.

Self-appointed divinity,

deus ex machina.

*****************­************

Ann says: All of the animal and human characters in this poem (except Neptune and The Pretender) are named after coral reef fish. Coral reefs, one of the most diverse ecosystems, are expected to be largely extinct within one human generation. Deus ex machina is Latin for “God from the machine.”

Copyright 2013 by Ann Marcaida.
Copyright 2013 by Ann Marcaida.

All of the animal and human characters in this poem (excepting Neptune and the quadruped) are named after coral reef fish. Coral reefs, one of the most diverse ecosystems, are expected to be largely extinct within one human generation.

Special thanks to my poetry coach, without whom I never would have gotten this poem to publication quality.  Also to anonymous reviewer G.W. who helped to steer me in the right direction.
palladia Jun 2013
awkward is a promiscuous word. it flirts unintentionally. it seduces mentally. but most of all it's so disruptionally absurd even the first-come-first-serve basis comes 15 feet behind the typical quota. but it really isn't that serious. it would be awkward plus if i wasn't active right now. does that sound appealing to anyone? well it better. i'm no vanguard when it comes to distribution of emotions. they'll be distributed equally, thank you, and don't worry about getting more 'cause they'll be pieced out safe and fair. lord jesus, we need some sorrow-getter-overs in here! i'm always telling those who ask me for advice to relinquish the suffering and let the good times roll. not that it'll save their hides, i snicker mimically and divert the attention to something inappropriately interesting, like a ***** bumper sticker or a animal corpse on the side of the road. and you are gonna turn into one if you don't stop that crying! man i need some fresh air and i'm not talking about the innocent kind. it's more of the obvious, over-cynical cyanide-soaked air that formaldehyde would blush over. there are two r's in sorrow because the s and the o and w need to be capsized into one rowboat. i never thought i would compromise intimacy with loudspeaker attention-grabbers and then the sailboat does a belly-flop and lands head first in the witches' cauldron. which is like Hamlet's, but a lot less systematic and bunches more pagan. it's synthetically miserable but enigmatically moral. dance of the morals is another program i like. it has to do with the regard of selfish hope and loose pragmatism. pagan! ****** i know it's pagan but it's pigheaded trash like that which gets stuck in the garbage disposal ever so often and we don't have no time to clean it out. i use a fish net that once occupied a corner near the stove which had the net chewed through by ***** rats that inhabit the lower quarters of the bathhaus. it's nothing significant really but more or less a principle in not making leftovers from the unknown trashpile near the barn. attention: entrance alert. "too bad for" who cares. i'm sick of this. "too bad for". that's all said? "let's chat a lot" what? i thought maureen was coming over at 7? who left the cat out again--the dog's gonna have a field day playing cops and robbers, and there are always reallive guns. and i'm stuck back at square/ground one/zero figuring out how i'm gonna get the next day's meal without having to cut off my head or make the microsoft paper clip icon appear with those embarrassing clips telling you how you should appear to your boss on your first interview. and find out that he's a man after all. and ultimately regret what you said every two minutes. wish i had contributed crescents more to the goodness, and not brush over like a stuckist's paintbrush. he's actually using blood instead of acrylics- that's when i get running. wish i hadn't have done that. wish i hadn't. we "hadn't" too much, you know? i wish we had to have "hadn't" before it hadn't have been created. still my emotions are sold and i've cast a mold far too ugly to be a stupid cupid. can we get on with the show, please? no thank i've had enough cranberry pie for right now, maybe buttercup the parrot can have the rest? the cat hates water. then why is he swimming in the dog dish? i'm not complaining, just hesitating to say how i feel when i want it. yeah, i know you're looking at me make a sucker outta myself on your camera. all those poses weren't hard to accomplish but you aggrandize the bad and disregard that i actually have good talent after all. crazy 8s. thought i'd never compromise. thought i'd never make a sport out of tantalizing the shopkeeper's parakeet. yeah, they're playing that game everyone calls a bore cuz it is one. why not roast a marshmallow then find a salamander caught between the chocolate and the *******. and we can't have them crackers anyways cuz there's got gluten in them. can we take a walk, i have something to tell you? i have to tell you about my personal life. i don't care if you're bored. darwin was never bored, fyi. i don't want to hear your juvenile complaints anymore. you're always telling me your problems but you never let me talk. but why would you care? and no way am i gonna share? not there. still. you're still not coming around cuz you're crying and i can't take it anymore. stop the tears, i already told you just take another pill and you'll relax. your life can stop in a heartbeat because some freak told you to stop ******* with the power outlet and make an attempt on making it right. how am i gonna make it right? seems good to me to get up and go and never return. seems right to let it all hang lose and think of excuses as a way to win some money. i'm not the principle breadwinner around here, but i'd bake enough bread to feed an army if i had to. a whole cohort of emotional bigots who don't care anything about their stupid, money-******* societies. it's leveled to the drain again, yeah i know you don't understand. i'm done asking. please? do it for me? don't you know i'm hurting myself because... i'm not listening. don't you want to know i'm cutting my flesh because... i have to water the garden. oh dear what was that? whew! almost another collision with a bee. whew--another close one. what about the spiders in the cabbage bed? what why didn't you tell me? yeah, the cabbage patch has produced more memories than heads, and no not those types of heads. a mashup of what i hate most and what i hate least scourged outta me in a whirl. she's going to take a walk. the radio's on and it's hot in here. those maudy days of summer, but i love every shred of them like i do a coat in the winter. the radio's playing my song: doomsday magnificat! i like leather and metal combinations that are sold in a 60s oz town. you can tie and whip me if you conscience can, but not now. it's another adage gone to the birds. oh no the shopkeeper's parrot is out again and i didn't do it! how come i'm blamed for things i don't do? get over it. another fact of life. another testimonial head my way. dodge! that was a flying saucer that almost razed your head. you wouldn't care though because enough has happened today to make your head spin even faster than it already is. and they're real-live which makes me keeping fumbling my too-short curls disintegrated by sheer chauvinism and belated princeness. that's alright. i know how you feel. i know how the world feels because i am the world. and the world is my canvas. and i may dictate what you are allowed and i may waver onto what laws of principalities are shooting up everywhere, but it's okay 'cause there's a lot more to shoot than good time. and those wacked people can form an alliance and take down the stronghold because in reality, you know that you are wacked yourself to say that. i'm sorry you did. the world will keep spinning, snipers will keep killing, conservatives will keep protesting, parents will keep levitating, children will keep withholding, the days will keep heating, the pool will be more refreshing, and yeah mrs. renttib is still coming over. the world is new. and i am young. but we will all stay safe and good in this empyrean. because and i created it. and i established the surveillance cameras, which are everywhere, but don't feel pressed. yes, i'll forever watch your every move, and even though you've done good, i'll still send you to hell. because you belong there. you may begin now. make your tread strong yet gentle. it's not my expense, the water is cooler out here,
                                                                ­                             anyways.
i've had a rotten day, but i wasn't involved, rather- others force it upon me, for condolence's sake.

ah, you've got plenty to be thankful about so why bother complaining? i often try to analyze this, because my life isn't perfect and i'm often ****** into an uncomfortable state, even when i had nothing to do with it. this was written during (+ after) a family argument about help and those who shouldn't help us, and telling others first, and letting everyone know. i think it's better to keep it to yourself or see a psychologist than starting a whole mess like this again. i know people hate that i don't like opening up and sharing but i'm doing it for the good of everyone. i'm the breadwinner of myself; others will only make me file more tax returns, it seems! so i'm upset and nervous and kind of scared. i want to explore it in a different angle and if i have to be crass and confrontational to do it, i say "full speed ahead!"
Leah Rae Oct 2012
They Are Lost Love Letters. Written & Sculpted, Imprinted On The Palms Of Praying Children.

They Are Hauntingly Beautiful.

They Are The Silence Of The Storm, They Are The Emptiness Of Shallow Graves.

All She Left Was “I'm Sorry” On The Bathroom Mirror In Red Lipstick, She's Said It So Many Times Her Body Is Now Bent Into A Permanent Benediction Of Regret.

He Wrote Five Drafts Of His Suicide Note Crossed Every T, Dotted Every I.

Now They Wear Self Inflicted Scars, Like Road Maps To Their Own Insanity.

It Was Her Palm Across The Diner Table At 3am. Her Skin Like Rose Petals Pressed In Submission, Smiling, Teeth Pulled Taunt Across Her Chapped Lips, Smiling, Telling Me She Hasn't Eaten In Three Days, Says The Sounds Of Her Body Eating Her Alive Helps Her Sleep At Night.

His Eyes, Angry And Blue, Told Me He Put A Down Payment On His Coffin Today. He'd Been Saving His Pennies For Five Years Now, Don't Tell Me This Wasn't Premeditated.

It Was The Way Her Body Vibrated Aching In Every Joint, Throbbing, Screaming Into Herself So Loudly Her Palms Shook. On The Way To Work In The Morning, Says Sometimes She Can Hear The Wind Whispering To Step In Front Of That Train, Says She Can Lick Her Lips And Taste Heaven.

The Way He Wore A Crooked Half Smile, Pouring GunShot After Gunshot Down His Throat. The Sting Reminded Him Of Wintertime In The Midwest, Told Me Could Feel The Tubes Clawing Their Way Down His Throat. Someday He'll Met A Heart Monitor With The Guts To Tell His Mother Sorry For Him, Because He Never Could.

She Filled Her Bathtub With Ice, She Fantasizes About The Layers Of Flesh Shes Been Suffocating In For So Long, Finally Being Numb.

The Way He Begged The Stars To Call Him Home, Closed His Eyes, As His Right Foot Craved The Gas Pedal, Screaming Through This Red Light, So He Can Finally Come Face To Face With The Angry God So Many People Pray To.

She Wanted To Trace The Lineage Of Her Family Tree Deep Into Her Veins, Up The Length Of Her Riverbed Skin, Until She Can Kiss The Underside Of Her Own Touch.

In The Early Hours Of The Morning, He Finds Himself Crawling On Bruised Hands & Scraped Knees, Cradled Against Train Tracks, He Liked The Constant Thunder In His Ribcage, The Promise Of Something So Much Bigger Than Him Dwelling Inside The Body He Has Been Calling Home.

She Wanted To Wrap The Tether Of Regret Around Her Throat, Ring Her Lungs Breathless, Tighter, Tighter, Until The Time Between The Rise And Fall Of Her Chest Felt Like Centuries.

He Stood Face To Face With A Motionless Sky, A Shade Of Grey So Empty He Could Feel It Ache Inside Of Him. It Begged Him To Step Forward, Just Inches, The Call Of The Void, Bridge Jumper, Harlequin Lost Lover, So Close, So Close.

She Held The Barrel Of Life Between Her Lips, A Fine Line Between Here And There. Shes Walking A Boundary Built In Her Blood. It Doesn't Hurt Yet. A Trigger Happy Hand, Palms Sweating, Shes Counting Down In Her Head, 3, 2, 1,

He's Got “Wide Awake” Written All Over Him, The Bottle Says Take One, But He's Got 53 In The Palm Of His Hand, She's Got Gasoline Seeping Into Her Skin, The Smell Of Smoke Has Never Been This Strong.

They've Been Journaling Their Lives Deep Into Leather-bound Notebooks For Someone To Remember, They've Swallowed Their Own Self Pity, Call It Poison.

She  Never Knew I Would Have Used My Fingertips As Windshield Wipers For Her Tears. I Would Have Placed My Open Palms Against His Chest, And Told Him He Mattered, At Least To Me, In This Moment, Brash And Reckless Healing,

They Told Me They Found A Muse In The Lost. Hopeless Melodies, Kurt Cobain. Sylvia Path With Stones In Her Pockets. ****** With Cyanide Tablets And Silver Born Bullets. Anne Sexton With Carbon-Monoxide Lungs And A Padlocked Volkswagen. Marilyn Monroe Silver Studded In Sedatives, Pulled Down Deep, Until There Was Nothing Left. Hemingway With Shotgun Shells Littering His Skull.

To Them It Seemed Like A Right Of Passage. A Last Attempt To Leave This Planet Screaming. A Better Than Goodbye. Something Poetic To Carve Into Your Skin, Or Flip Top Wooden Desk, So Someone Somewhere Would Remember The Name, Because They Were Told Legends Never Die.
This one is real personal. Hope it resonates with you, like it does with me.
We all just want to be truly free,
Of all the hatred and misery.
But the limitations of humans, you see,
Is that we can't decide what's meant to be.

We can't control what happens around us,
Not even prevent tragedies that faze us.
And while happy and sad are simultaneous,
It seems only the depression becomes contagious.

Life is hard, and we all know,
When only a mask, can we show.
Only one can relate and help us grow,
But the breeze carrying love, will rarely blow.

I just want to live in happiness,
Feel nothing but the eternal bliss.
But the only thing that brings me this,
Comes from her lips, that one special kiss.

But what do I do when she's not here?
She may not return, that's what I fear.
Her time to go, seems to be near,
But I can't let go when I hold her so dear.

Each day that passes, what grows is her pain,
And as  a human, it's what I can't contain.
I'd love to die, but I must refrain,
Because that would just drive her totally insane.

We don't want to be, not at each others' side,
But The Lord didn't make that for us to decide.
To know this just happens, sounds like genocide,
Losing her is like breathing cyanide.

We can only see through our own eyes,
We can't comprehend another's demise.
It's this very limit that I despise,
Because I'll never know when her soul cries.

The limitations of being human,
Make us permanent catechumens.

Only she could restore my faith,
But lost I will be, shall I see her wraith.

She is all that matters to me,
Together forever, we wished we could be.

My soul can't escape the depths of this Hell,
Without her, there I'll eternally dwell.

But her soul being a pure white dove,
She saves me with her beauteous love.

So I beg thee great Lord, not bound like us,
Save her, it's You to whom, her I entrust.

She's the one who takes away,
The sins that always lead me astray.

Lord, you know, for you are not I,
She's my Angel, I see in both eyes.
Ashwin Kumar Aug 2018
I don't know who you are
I don't know what you do
I don't know where you are
But I know that
You have wrecked me
Mentally, psychologically and socially
Rendering me incoherent in speech
And incapable of action
Reduced to a blundering mass
Of bloated bones and sinew
Ready to collapse like a pack of cards
At the slightest hint of a crisis

I don't know who you are
I don't know what you do
I don't know where you are
But I know that
You have wrecked me
And you shall pay dearly for it
Whether it be death by a thousand cuts
Or a pill of cyanide in your cup of tea
Or a bullet right in your temple
Or a mighty fall from the tallest tower
Or a bite from a venomous serpent
Or a decapitation by the mighty guillotine
Or even, having your soul ****** out
From your filthy mouth

I don't know who you are
I don't know what you do
I don't know where you are
But I know that
You have wrecked me
And I shall not rest
Until I finish you, once and for all
And the world is rid, of your menace
A poem which is meant as a message to a troll on Facebook with a fake account

Statutory Warning: contains references to violence, death and ******. Not recommended for children, senior citizens, women in advanced stages of pregnancy; and cancer and heart patients.
Kelly Weaver Mar 2018
Our home has an uneven foundation
The walls are crumbling and the support beams are rotting
And tonight, the roof finally caved in.
As my lungs filled with sawdust I covered my ears
I covered my eyes and hid from my fears
I didn’t wanna hear the screams or the tears,
I couldn’t bare to hear promises of suicide
And claims of pure hatred with a dash of cyanide
I couldn’t bare to see my home topple over
And I couldn’t bring myself to look at their hands bunched up into fists
They screamed until they couldn’t make a sound and I couldn’t deal
I couldn’t witness such a catastrophe without being scarred so I ran and I hid
I hid from their words and I hid from their lies
I hid until the worst of it was over
And then all was quiet.


When I opened my eyes, the walls were intact
The beams were solid, the floor was leveled
And everyone was smiling.
Their teeth were black with ash and soot
But they smiled wide, grinning ear to ear
And their voices were calm, the yelling had ceased
I uncovered my ears.
And though their mouths told one story
Their eyes told another
They were red and puffy, and I could see the pain that the damage caused
But they smiled on anyway
As did I.
the draft, however, remained.
melinoe immortal Jul 2018
Selene.

By the sea, I have been staring,
at your bright colours change.
Erythematous, murderous intentions of
a disease disseminating
on your surface.

The slow, penetrating anguish
tearing the guts,
a one-sided, disdained,
newborn sadness,
I am welcoming in my arms.

On the operating theatre of life
white and now dead moths,
stillborn butterflies
inside the flesh removed,
drowned themselves in a pool of blood.
They, an absurd joy
that never stood a chance
inside this cyanide prison.

Portals of loaned,
disillusioned happiness closed.
The liquid that raced turbulently
through my vessels, drained on a half-filled
with tears palette.

With menacing, impasto knife-like strokes
on the body
Morpheus painted the shadow-covered moon
with memories that refuse to be forgotten
from purulent, open wounds.
'Those worlds you will (never) see.
The people you will (never) meet' he said.

Soul chemicals eroding
the behemoth sky,
as the paint dries out.
Ashes of my Dreams (Not) Achieved,
astral remains;
everything I silently kept inside.
I remember a sunrise,
when language
finally spun out and left
us in easy stillness.

We watched the green
canal awake with a
flicker and I inclined;
willing him to touch me
just once...
But so relieved
when he only smiled and
said,
"Goodnight starshine."
~
Jamie, with one hand on her
hip and a flip-flop in the
other, struck the best
mighty-black-woman pose
a little-white-girl could
muster and cried,
"Harmoni, I'm gonna get
the shoe on you!"

Laughing
until tears reflected on
our faces and our ribs
implored mercy.
Laughing,
because all the world
was laughter.
~
I remember a Gemini saying,
"I love you."
Words a mere breath, a flutter
winging across distance
and circumstance, to rest
on my ear.

I remember having faith
and, for the first time in
my life,
faith was okay.
~
Tim’s profile ate at
my eye, vampire pale under
a bloated blue moon.

There was silence as there
was always silence,
expanding and breathing, throbbing
against the walls of my thoughts.

Dawn begged entry as his arms
wrapped me safe, and he said,
“I have to get out of this town.”

The hush mocked me. My tongue
became a corpse in my mouth.

“And I don’t want to go alone,”
he concluded but his thoughts were
far away from me and his arms and
the bloated moon, a sinking vista.

The silence belonged to me and so
did this lie,
maybe a finer gift
for the moment
than the truth.
~
I remember kissing a Kentucky
boy at a retro party. Long hair,
pulled into a reckless ponytail
and dance moves to rival
John Travolta's.

He was sporting a glittering
Saturday Night Fever costume,
beaming at me, and whispering,
"But I'm gay."
I remember a sly smile saying,
"It's time to put that theory to the test."
~
Shawn with his secret grin and
his animated hands,
hiking in the Glades.
He said,
"You're going to need a stick."
Knowing everything, my natural
response was an arrogant,
"What for?"
He shrugged, raised one of his
fine brows.

Later, when I was up to my chest
in mud, swimming alongside
a crayfish,
missing one of my shoes,
he smiled brightly down at me,
his chocolate curls a halo in the
backlighting sun,
"That's what you needed the stick for."
He demonstrated how he used it to
gauge the depth of the muck.
But he didn’t hesitate to offer me
his clean hand.
~
I remember a Gemini’s whisper,
"I love you."
Words a vague breath,
spinning and soaring across
distance and circumstance,
to rest on my heart.

I remember believing.
~
I remember Ashton and me
driving to The Waffle House
after midnight.
There was a smashed motorcycle
on the highway ahead, emergency
lights washing across the windshield.

Ash grinned and said,
"I'm glad I brought this."
And he lit a joint.
Half an hour later,
still in the exact same spot,
The Beatles Twist and Shout came
on the radio and
I screeched my best version on Lennon’s
wild invitation to shake it baby now
and Ash bellowed ah
Ahhh
AHHH
and laughter became warm wine
dribbling down our chins
as the final chords and beats
and voices
pounded together in a final
triumphant roar,
dissolving us into a happy heap
suspended in a moment where
such songs never end and
someone is always shouting,
“Play it again, John!”

The smile in Ashton’s eyes
said exactly what I was thinking
as horns honked and sirens cried
in some other universe…  
We didn't care if they never
cleared that road.
~
My voice made of iron,
I said to Phillip,
"There is no God."
I was sitting at the kitchen table
in our one-room apartment,
our first apartment,
naked and clinging to
a cup of coffee,
clinging to the only things
I could cling to with bitter
grief staining my lips.

He said,
"No?
Well, you're not alone, anyway."
I didn't know why it should matter
or if it did,
but I knew it was true and felt the
fact ride along to the tips of my toes.

I am not alone.
I wondered if that would always be true.
~
I remember a Gemini said,
"I love you."
Words a naked breath,
Sent to sail and glide across
distance and circumstance,
to quiet the shrill music of
my memories.
~
Chris’ hands shook as
he smoked and avoided my
gaze. We sat in inconsiderate  
plastic seats in a visiting room
where drooling, mumbling
patients weren’t allowed lighters
or belts or shoe laces.

This was before…
Before Cindy Cyanide
received her formal invitation;
When Slappy Sleepinol seemed like
a decent date to dance him into
a bruised and dreaming garden.

I examined those hollow eyes
in slantwise glimpses;
seeking answers in the creases
of his forehead, in the stroke of
his long smoky exhale,
inquiring, finally, “Why? But why…”

Through the haze, he
caught my eye, held it firm, and said,
“There is no ‘why’. I’m sorry.”
~
Hallucinating madly with Jessi
at my side, walking
down deserted streets in the
middle of the night.

She took off her skirt and put
it on her head. Became a Native
princess, headdress rising
from her brow,
spreading long down her naked back.
We continued walking, she
wearing nothing but a smile
and her *******.

The stars painted a melting  
map over our heads
and the road home was endless.
We were children and in that
immaculate moment, I knew
and I was glad.
~
And then there was
a Gemini.

And then there were dreams.
This poem can be found in Venus Laughs, a collection of poetry from Harmoni McGlothlin, available at GraceNotesBooks.com.
bleh Jun 2014
If I said my heart was a cyanide laced pomegranate,
would that make its expressions any less ******?
If I said falling in love was like throwing yourself off a cliff on a winter night and drowning yourself tumbling through the air blind like a bag of kittens, but I was quoting Kierkegaard,
would that make it any less of an awkward melodrama?
If I told you the western blocks blind attacks on the other,
kinda resembled Freud's account of the mother
of a miscarriages melancholia,
is that a condoning or a condemnation?
if I translated every meta-narrative of class relation, oppression, wage slavery, state violence, suppression,
into anthropomorphic allegories for a myriad of psychological phenomena,
would I be an academic or a shinto miko?
[and would the world be any better?]
if I superimposed on the geographical topology,
the political and then the existential,
would I have a sandwich?
Or a lasagne?
words words words

                                  (what do they even)
Come with me darling
Let's leave this place behind
Let's pack up everything and go
It's just a little cliché I know.
So let's leave without our sanity.  
And swallow cyanide at afternoon tea.
Day Jan 2017
11 days, I spent in grey hospital socks
wandering halls bare, not even clocks
17 girls, all torn and broken inside
opened our wrists, drank cyanide
"behavior heath", but we knew was psych
held wandering souls, all pale and ghostlike
sat in a circle, we shared and we cried
of times we stole, drank, smoked and lied
stories of ****, abuse and pain
somehow all one and the same
different faces and different lives
but most chose to end it with knives
but failure brought us all to this place
to learn a new name, gain a new face
fed us some pills and watched how we'd do
if we'd scream and suddenly turn blue
but only a few continued to fall
and theirs are the saddest stories of all
my heart broke each night as I sat and heard
one of the girls minds became blurred
still even now, I shed a tear
for every lost soul, that we never hear
Recently went to an intensive inpatient behavior health center after a major panic attack and breakdown. I was suicidal and was diagnosed with major depression. This experience, really changed me and opened my mind so much. More to come . I give thanks for this site for giving me a positive way to cope. You all are amazing. <3
rained-on parade Jan 2014
More than love,
sometimes it is
the fear of being alone.
Because loneliness
creates a haunting echo
of our silence.

Isn't that why
we seek broken things,
and broken men?

So that we
fix instead of break
at least for once.

So that we
leave our signatures
in the loosely filled
cracks and scars.

So that they
cannot recall life
but after we set
their hearts beating again.

So that every time
they take their clothes off,
they can see us
sewed to their skin.

And be proud
to call it ours.
Lexander J Apr 2015
From within a blackened heart
spawns madnesses twisted Invictus,
a severed head sat atop a plinth, filled
with decaying thoughts of cyanide and citrus,

completely crazy, inverted, perverted,
infected with an insanity that dances from the eyes -
pouting lips tempestuous and alluring
from the tip of a tongue he sews insidious lies,

roosting upon the bleeding emotions of others
a vile disassociation sanity can't pertain,
charred lips from suckling the ******* of Hell
the back-broke miracle nature refuses to explain,

exhaling noxious fumes, a pyro-manic incense,
one soul re-arranged, deranged and blisteringly intense;

so much so, it disgusts me beyond words -

so kick the rotten apple,

watch the maggots writhe within thou sour curds.
SabreLi Dec 2016
They tell me it’s the lesser of two evils
But I’m not sure that’s a fact
Sometimes I think it’s best to leave you to your demons
They’ve got you this far in tact

Either way I can’t stop the progression
This deadly routine’s for your own protection
There are no winners here, there’s far too much at stake
Do I stand by and let them feed you to the rattlesnake?
When I know it’s eating you up inside
Like a private supply of cyanide

Going, going, gone
I see you today but who knows where you’ll be tomorrow
Going, going, gone
Slipping through my fingers to a place that I can’t follow
Going, going, gone
Your own private cyanide’s a bitter pill to swallow
Going, going, gone

I know there’ll be times that you will disagree
But just between you and me
When they tell us over again that two’s company
I feel like we are three

But they don’t matter, all my objections
This deadly routine‘s become your obsession
There are no winners here, there’s far too much at stake
Do I stand by and let them feed you to the rattlesnake?
And I know it's killing you from inside
Like a private supply of cyanide

Going, going, gone
I see you today but who knows where you’ll be tomorrow
Going, going, gone
Slipping through my fingers to a place that I can’t follow
Going, going, gone
Your own private cyanide’s a bitter pill to swallow
Going, going, gone

Every day I see you drift further away
And there’s only so much I can pray
I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place
Soon you’ll disappear without a trace

Going, going, gone

Copyright © 2016-2017 KF
Another one written with multiple interpretations is mind, but mostly about someone suffering from ill mental health whose medication changes them so much they are not the same person any more. Is the cost too great; to sacrifice your self for a few moments of 'normality' when we don't even know what that is?
Sam Hammond Nov 2018
Deep inside, and petrified,
Within my soul is cyanide,
Sitting, waiting patiently
For chances to escape from me.
For this reason it seems decent,
Fit to logic, moral reason,
That I keep my soul contained
And every single part arranged
Behind a face I've froze in place.
Dull of sense, of thought, of taste.
Trapped inside is where resides
My awful soul of cyanide.
zumee Oct 2018
She stands at the window
a fine white stream of goodevil knowledge
trickling down her chin

Lungs heaving against the pane
Lungs heaving against the pain
She longs for a killer breeze
from the die-hard fan.

The yellow-eyed seconds slither out the clock
hi S S ing in rhythm as they crawl.

On the table lies the used core of a once
juicy red delicious
hourglass figure, cyanide hearts and all

She is aware of her own nakedness.

The moon watches on
bleeding silver
from stab wounds by dagger-branches
waiting for a crack in the window
through which to enter

The Tree of Life towers menacingly overhead.

He walks in
AdamAnt
intelligent-designer suit: businessgod attire
briefcase in hand
brief case in point

He knows.
She knows.
Time knows.

An Electrified goliath stirs in the depths

The Ego awakens
lifts its rod
beckoning to the waves of children behind it,
parts the folds of red sea
charges head on.

It rides long and hard
hooves pounding the riverbed
Ready
to pull out on the other side

But the branches find their crack.

The Enraged goliath stumbles
suffocating
Ego trips
relentless walls closing in,
It goes under in a seizure
frothing at the mouth
drowning
as its children swim.

Time holds the twosome breath in its constricting grip
Tree binds Life inside a cell
at the center of the evolving prison

The pane, reflecting
The pain, reflected
Window souls mirror soul's Window

Branches regain their higher dwellings.

An exhumed goliath stirs
on a distant shore.

She stands at the window
a fine white stream of goodevil knowledge
trickling down her shin.
I

Half of the fellow father as he doubles
His sea-****** Adam in the hollow hulk,
Half of the fellow mother as she dabbles
To-morrow's diver in her ***** milk,
Bisected shadows on the thunder's bone
Bolt for the salt unborn.

The fellow half was frozen as it bubbled
Corrosive spring out of the iceberg's crop,
The fellow seed and shadow as it babbled
The swing of milk was tufted in the pap,
For half of love was planted in the lost,
And the unplanted ghost.

The broken halves are fellowed in a *******,
The crutch that marrow taps upon their sleep,
Limp in the street of sea, among the rabble
Of tide-tongued heads and bladders in the deep,
And stake the sleepers in the savage grave
That the vampire laugh.

The patchwork halves were cloven as they scudded
The wild pigs' wood, and slime upon the trees,
******* the dark, kissed on the cyanide,
And loosed the braiding adders from their hairs,
Rotating halves are horning as they drill
The arterial angel.

What colour is glory? death's feather? tremble
The halves that pierce the pin's point in the air,
And ***** the thumb-stained heaven through the thimble.
The ghost is dumb that stammered in the straw,
The ghost that hatched his havoc as he flew
Blinds their cloud-tracking eye.

II

My world is pyramid. The padded mummer
Weeps on the desert ochre and the salt
Incising summer.
My Egypt's armour buckling in its sheet,
I scrape through resin to a starry bone
And a blood parhelion.

My world is cypress, and an English valley.
I piece my flesh that rattled on the yards
Red in an Austrian volley.
I hear, through dead men's drums, the riddled lads,
******* their bowels from a hill of bones,
Cry Eloi to the guns.

My grave is watered by the crossing Jordan.
The Arctic scut, and basin of the South,
Drip on my dead house garden.
Who seek me landward, marking in my mouth
The straws of Asia, lose me as I turn
Through the Atlantic corn.

The fellow halves that, cloven as they swivel
On casting tides, are tangled in the shells,
Bearding the unborn devil,
Bleed from my burning fork and smell my heels.
The tongue's of heaven gossip as I glide
Binding my angel's hood.

Who blows death's feather? What glory is colour?
I blow the stammel feather in the vein.
The **** is glory in a working pallor.
My clay unsuckled and my salt unborn,
The secret child, I sift about the sea
Dry in the half-tracked thigh.
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Her life can’t be denied
First to vent then try to understand then accept death of innocence first seething anger only more enflamed by people trying to
Politicize and lessen the loss of innocent American lives especially little one, long before face book there was basebook evil’s network
This country has rings of evil a year after the bombing in Oklahoma I flew back here and then drove a car back home I stopped and
Videoed the bomb site and then many miles later and much video of this great country I pulled up behind a pickup in Kingman Arizona
Still videoing I was surprised and angered when he had a bumper sticker up on his back window over from his lariat and high powered
Rifle that said something to the effect you haven’t got all of the explosives this wasn’t the only comment there were other signs of a
Gun culture what made it so offensive was it was well known McVeigh and Terry Moore had used Kingman as a base of operations
Arguably this was just a bunch of jerks not real disturbed people like the one in Tucson I understand because while running production
In a chemical plant we had a big government contract which involved a lot of piecemeal work we hired in thirty temps and one was a
Carbon copy of the shooter in Tucson we already had two deadly chemicals everyone knows cyanide but phenol is liquid poison it has
A couple of tricks it freezes at eighty degrees and it absorbs through the skin and when it gets to the blood your dead one guy
Unloading a tanker the line froze he breaks the hose but when he does the chunk of ice flows out hitting him with a load he was dead
before he hit the ground I got a face full of it deluded to fifteen percent when the electric pump transferring to another drum caused the
Plastic hose to jump out the force of the pump shot the deluded phenol against the rim across from me I saw it coming all I could do
Was close my eyes as tight as I could get them instantly ten thousand bees were stinging my face I staggered around until one of the
Guys led me to the emergency shower that was there for this very reason I was taken to the hospital my wife walked in and stated
Crying my brother in law said I looked like Anthony Quinn in the film requiem for a prize fighter they told me as they continued to
Steadily bathe my face with water if the phenol got to the blood there was nothing they could do I survived but then one of the temps
Named randy was a skin head so now we had three deadly poisons it was the hardest thing to interact even simple conservation was
Really impossible like the scene with two polar bears it followed their lives from cubs to three years old and they were being shipped
To another zoo how cute but something triggered the one he became pure bear instant raw aggression at a level that was unnerving
Even from watching it from Television it was like it was crazed just like Randy in an instant he was back in his room with his swastikas
Barely coherent and defiantly not cogent being around him was like getting high on some of our bad fumes I’m interested in helping
People the most powerful drugs couldn’t get you in line with his thinking delusional twisted into a knot of hate and violence he had a
Another thing he liked to brag and had a habit of drinking weird stuff he poured our H B Fuller industrial strength glue into a Pepsi can
And drank it we never seen him again although we watched with keen interest all the entry points to the building for the next two
Weeks incase Randy was paying us a visit with his AK forty seven rifle that is the only reason I have any concern for the shooter in
Arizona again all the warning signs were evident he is disturbed others must protect him plus others he would harm but they still
Wait until yet again as a nation we bleed with profound sorrow from innocence lost.
Madness slays a princess, love of country brought her to the place it would be so harshly violated
In her face America shines with what it should be perfected in innocence raised with all the colors of our vibrancy as a nation then the
Dark foreboding it steals light and life at only nine but she was far ahead of that measurement of earthen time she was endowed with
Power that lives in highest possibilities that are only possible in true unaffected innocence her country was the true country not this
Unrecognizable one that every manner of evil is allowed to flourish and then when openly shown its true depths of departure from
Its true excellence we fail to take the reigns as men and women of character we let drugs alcohol and *** rule without raising the least
Bit of a challenge our enemies spit and scoff at our claims of being a moral ceat for the rest of the world we seek only rewards never
Stopping to be sacrificial givers I know our troops and there are a select few that are this noble but the scale is tipped in evils favor
We are weighed divine justice and peace withdraws behind our ways that are filled with greed and failure at every turn measures taken
From our history shows such gaps of even the smallest vestures of righteous endeavor is tossed as backward living out of tune with the
Times Tucson is the product of the new standard of thought that guides us as a people you can’t wallow in filth and then go out to
Be a force and an advocacy for truth you are breaking down all moral restraints and wonder why we are in a flood of insanity you sow
To the wind then you reap a whirlwind each step each day distances us from divine defenses we invite only trouble as long as we
Pursue the course we are on all who is weak in our nation bare the blunt of this misguided thinking the world has never been this
Close to the brink it’s beyond human control that which is to be played out get in line or see more innocence perish right before our
Eyes this tide can be turned but it takes us all not a grand few that are ignored and steam rolled as a new advantage is gobbled up
For a short temporary season our founding fathers talked of posterity we talk of prosperity and everyone else be dammed.
Nicole Dec 2011
I drank the cyanide tonight
I was tired of it all.
I drank the whole thing
And to the floor I did fall.

I remember now
As I lay here in a coma
Why I took the first sip.
It's your fault.
I was going down
And you sat by,
Watched me slip.

As I lay here dying
I feel the anger swell
Why didn't you try to save me?
You know what I feel

But even as I die
I somehow find it in me to forgive
I'm crying inside
I change my mind!
I want to live!

Guess it's too late now.
Seems everyone has given up on me
Why did I take that drink?
Why was death my dream?

I'll never know,
It's too late now.
I'm taking my
Last faint breath

I'm sorry mom
I'm sorry dad
And bro, I'm so sorry
I'm leavin' you

Dear family
Dear friends
And everyone else who cared
I'm sorry I had to go

I did what I always did best
But don't worry
It's all over
I made my final mistake.

I drank the cyanide tonight
I was tired of it all.
I drank the whole thing
And to the floor I did fall.
robin Apr 2013
and i've been tired for so long i can't remember how alertness tastes
because boredom with life is a habit i could break
with a bullet
and a lapse in cowardice.
and when the planets align i know i could
but mars is falling and pluto,
pluto crumbled while i watched the rain.
my roman candles are alight under the clouds
and i let the rain drown the fuse -
i'm afraid to be awake.
stillborn child, i was d.o.a
why change that now?
all these pyrotechnics just
reek of desperation
so i drop mine in the lake where they belong.
with bullets on my breath i watched the rain
while pluto crumbled above
a negligent god let the universe fall,
a negligent god let words of love
be scribbled on the walls of his church.
i'm tired of life and death would be a nice vacation
but i don't speak the language
and the exchange rate is too high
so i sit by the runways
and pretend i'm leaving too.
i watch terminal patients die
and put myself in their place.
dark tattoos below the eyes
like a bad decision
another fight lost.
throw the fireworks in the gutter
and hope the sky stays dark
tonight
roman candle heart sodden with rain,
i wouldn't know what to do with consciousness if i had it.
i fell asleep by the runways and dreamed
that i lived forever
unrequited adoration,
a one-sided love affair
with death.
all my idols were runaways
and i worshiped them like an eclipse
i worshiped everything that devoured itself
and anything that dared approach
they said **** your heroes
and i dropped cyanide in a whirlpool.
the balance between insomnia
and narcolepsy
is fragile
and my inner ears burst when i tried to retrieve my
fireworks
from the bottom of the lake.
too tired to stay asleep,
i watch the rain
and catch fragments of pluto on my tongue.
dead nerves, damp fuse
alexithymia and apathy
lie along my veins like cyanosis
blue lips,
blue lips -
neptune in my mouth like a bitter aftertaste.
pluto below my eyes,
mars drowning at the bottom of the lake.
if the planets were aligned this would fly true,
but the threads are tangled
and it's another casing at my feet.
infinity is not a number, only something you can
reach for
or run from,
cowering in the safety of ze
ro.
the heresy of nonexistence,
the concept of nothing vs the promise of heaven.
in a whirlpool i found my calling.
in a whirlpool i devoured myself
and spat myself back out again,
dissatisfied with the sour taste of
stagnation.
i missed boredom when it was gone,
ached with the hole it left
and the sudden shock of
consciousness.
you know boredom has a smell?
it smells like honeysuckle
and fog
and apples rotting on the ground because
the harvest always passed us by.
i found one of those apples
and filled up the hole boredom left.
rotting autumn in my chest,
apple-heart,
ennui like a second skin
or first language.
i tried to learn another but it remains,
the language i think and smother in.
      you know
in all languages but this
my name means nothing,
just a collection of syllables to spill
out of a foreigner's mouth

in the language of death my name means nothing
but it's all i know how to say
title ideas much apreciated
Joliver May 2018
I am a bittersweet smile
One that hides hurt
And shame
Like they were easter eggs
That are the shape
Of the fragmentations of
A shattered heart
Each filled
With sweet cyanide
And truthful tears

I am a bittersweet smile
One that never quite believes
That it deserves any love
Any praise, any friendship
Anymore
Because everything in this life
Is too good for a bittersweet smile

I am a bittersweet smile
The kind that knows it will be alone
In the end
And tries to reassure itself
That it's okay
You like being alone

I am a bittersweet smile
One that knows it has no right
To complain about what
Made it so crooked
One that hides from the past
One that hurts
As if the stretching of flesh was unnatural
And cruel

I am a bittersweet smile
One that everyone says they love
But I wonder if they ever
Look at my eyes
Because they hold the truth
The one my grin disguises
Sarina May 2013
I don’t like cauliflower so I will feed all mine to friends
moving black specks, fruit flies on vegetables
confused
killing their dinner with cyanide
like sticks of cinnamon or garlic cubes

I hand it to bugs with my long second toe
that is supposed to mean I am a genius, but I don’t eat
cauliflower broccoli anything leafy and I am missing fish oil
from my diet

confused
I whisper into the fruit flies’ elf ears
perked up as dog eyes escape their sockets sometimes

Dogs do not eat cauliflower either or hummus
they are not even confused

Morning, we all see the same shape of the moon’s goneness
but others will eat bread despite mold
I wonder if I am one
and what have I done to the economy by disliking
cauliflower broccoli anything leafy and fish oil, as well.
Dawn Treader Jun 2017
Socrates consumed Hemlock,
Cleopatra embraced the Asp,
Alan Turing ate an apple laced with cyanide,
I, like those before me,
Have picked my poison;
An absinthe-eyed, quicksilver-tongued boy.
He was unsettled when I answered with the truth of his query,
Yes, he is poison,
I knowingly and willingly consume every drop of him,
Not all toxicity is solely adverse,
Radiation treats cancer,
Venom in low doses is an antidote,
Ethanol relaxes muscle and numbs the emotions.
He is my poison and my antidote,
He is the corrosive acid that dissolves gear-stopping rust,
I, in kind, am the poison apple of his eye,
Or so he says,
And so, we two, bask in the destruction of ourselves,
Consuming each other's pain, insecurity, madness, and lust,
Why is it that he, a poison, is the one I trust?
Two toxic individuals clinging to each other. Perhaps there's nothing better he can find.

— The End —