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Poetry by MAN Mar 2014
A Beauty you are out and within
I have an insatiable desire to write poetry on your skin
Your body my canvas feel my gentle brush
Writing ******* with my ****** touch
Cinnamon lips I love your tone
Soft and silky to the bone
Finding words..be my guide
As we connect I come inside
Filling each other..there's no strain
Steady my thoughts I must maintain
Watching my penmanship using a steady stroke
I start hallucinating from my mental smoke
Sends me into a frenzied flow
I'll find my pace..go on a roll
My words soak in as you taste
My emotions invade your inner space
Down from your toes..Up to your eyes
Writing Haikus between your thighs
Poetry on your body every inch
You start writhing from my Scorpion pinch
Sinfully venomous my words forever sink
Into your skin my poetic tattoo ink
As you lay naked I visually feast
Every line of your body a masterpiece..
M.A.N 3-7-14 One of my favorites I really enjoyed writing this poem..^_*  ♏
Jeffwtfries Jul 2018
1 . Die, all of you.

2. Flip her skirt up.

3. Let everyone be happy.

4. Bring the most righteous person back to life.

5. Bring back everyone who died.

6. I want eternal life and youth!

7. Confidence.

8. I want to stop being a warrior.

9. I want more talent.

10. A harem, of course!

11. Disappear, all of you.

12. Expand my power to one thousand paths.

13. Money! Money!

14. I want to be friends with everyone in the world.

15. Rule the world!
Ruling the world is hard.

16. I want a girlfriend!
But would that really be love?

17. I want wisdom.
Foolishness makes you who you are.

18. I want to know the future.
But what fun would be living then?

19. I want to be a pro baseball player.
But you would have to work out every day then.

20. Telekinesis.
Then why I have hands?

21. I want to fly.
Then why I have feet?

22. I want to speak all languages.
You don't like to talk anyway (RELATABLE).

23. I want an X-ray vision.
That would lead to misunderstandings.

24. I wish for an end to war.
But it won't end exploitation.

25.I want to climb mount Everest.
But you would have only yourself to rely on.

26. I want a smartphone that can't run out of battery.
It would last only a few years still.

27. I want to pilot a giant robot!
What you would be fighting?

28. To never stub my toe again.
Why not just watch where you walk?

29.I want a cool supercar.
It won't feel the same if you don't buy it yourself.

30. I wish everyday could be Sunday.
Go to work on Sunday?

31. I want to be a bird.
Being a human is much better.

32. I want to read people's minds.
You would start to distrusting people.

33. The ability to wake up early.
But you would just go back to sleep. (Totally relatable)

34. I want to enter a manga.
What if you couldn't get out?

35. I want to be invisible.
You are already invisible in the classroom (that hurts, you know).

36. I want to not feel pain.
That's dangerous.

37. I want that rare book.
It's only rare because no one else have it.

38. I want that limited edition item.
Would it still be limited edition then?

39. I want a best friend.
What if they knew you were friends only because of a wish?

40. I want to be a great man.
That greatness wouldn't last.

41. I want to talk to animals
They probably don't have much to say.

42. I want to travel the world.
It's likely harder than it sounds.

43. I want to live in a mansion
All by yourself?

44. I want a fighter plane
Where would you park it?

45. I want to play all instruments!
But buying them all would be expensive.

46. I want to see a ghost!
Like hell you do!

47. I want to meet a great person from the past
But they would have a lot of lectures for a modern person.

48. I want my dormant power awakened!
What if you don't have any?

50. I want power to stop time!
That's like saying you want a power to commit crime.

51. I want better penmanship.
In digital era?

52. I want to meet an elf
In this day and age?

53. I want youth.
What do you think you have now?

55. I want an eye that sees long distances.
You mean like a third eye?

57. I want to hire a maid.
Just go to cafe.

58. I want to be a manga artist.
Answer one of the Young Jump recruiting postings.

60. I want to live in a deserted island!
You would probably want to leave it right away.

61. I want a time machine!
Do you have an idea how to get energy to power it?

62. I want to be free of stress.
You need stress to grow.

63. I want world peace.
Would you still exist in a peaceful world?

64. I want a loving family.
But artificial one?

65. I want to eat the world's most delicious food.
But you want to eat cup ramen too.

66. I want to go to amusement park
What are you, a girl raised to be a living weapon? (This is surely an allusion to something, I just can't get what)

67. I want to be on the front page of a newspaper!
Are you going to commit a crime or what?

77. I want to be a cyborg.
Who would repair you if you broke?

78. I want an art collection.
You don't even like that stuff. Don't pretend to be an intellectual.

79. I want to buy a penguin.
Can you even take care of an animal?

80. I want to talk to famous people.
About what? Any subject in mind?

82. A world free of evil people.
What would be left?

83. I want to be taller.
And then you would want to be shorter again.

84. I want courage.
What are you, a lion?

86. I want prestige.
Unearned prestige?

87. I want to never be late for a bus.
But then the buses would be late.

88. I want to be the strongest in world.
Why, so you can bully the weak?

89. I want to invent something amazing.
All inventions ultimately become weapons.

90.I want to film a movie.
You would bring down any set you were on.

91. I want to be someone who will never lose again.
The moment you wish for this, you become an eternal loser.

92.I want to become a master swordsman.
Dishonestly?

96. I want to learn the truth of the world.
No, you don't.

97. I wish misfortune on people I hate.
Wishing misfortune on others is a ****** thing to do.

98. To grant your wish instead.
Cancel that immediately.

99. I want to turn my wish into 100 wishes.

100. Let me forget
Strawberry Jones Dec 2012
I walked in
all young and awkward and kindred spirit-less
with a name tag that read
in black marker with my bad penmanship
that only comes on your first day of a new place.

I walked in
and a nameless face greeted me
strange as he was
and asked if my name was Strawberry.
"It sure looks like it, doesn't it?"
I replied courteously.
And so they called me that.

I walked in
months later
to my first weekend with people like me.
and I liked it.
and they all called me Strawberry.

I walked in
on several different occasions
and I grew into my name
as a plant will grow to whatever container
you put it in.
and so people loved me.

I walked in
with an air of summer
an air of sweetness and bitterness and
****
but they still loved me
even more.

I don't know what I will do
when I walk in
my first day as an adult
and they ask me what my name is.
I could tell them "Strawberry,"
but they would laugh.

Adults do not understand
the sweetness and the bitterness
the ****
as only kindred spirits can.
We come to a complete stop.
At a red light.
We wear our arms like seat-belts-
crossed for protecting our pilot lights.˚
I can't help but wonder how many airbags might deploy
if a meteor crashed headfirst and heavyset into the planet
and pancaked us eternally into this moment-
and how our fossils would look confused;
funeral flowers on a wedding cake.

None of this matters, we're both thinking it,
God is a foster child playing with his erector set.

You grin with as much conviction as a dented automobile,
breaking the months of silence to say,
"I miss you."

We can never fold these road maps back the way they came.

Somewhere existentially above this moment, there is an asterisk
that confirms
you- are here.

There was a younger version of me that you never got to meet,
he was here once,
stupid as a slinky.
Shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch.
Crooked as the question mark that punctuated his voice.
I looked good in hydroplane,
my eyes- bigger than my belly,
so I drank my weight in promises- I knew would be hard to keep within arms reach.
I also knew an encyclopedia's worth of how it felt to lie to myself.
I did it for twenty-three years
until I finally let go of stupid and held on to reason.

At some age I wrote letters to my favorite musicians,
using the sloppiest side of my penmanship, I'd ask for answers
and my mother, like a paperclip, used to tell me - she'd say,
"Kiddo, just because they don't respond
doesn't mean they didn't get the message."

She kept her chest of hope upstairs, away from the living room.
She only opened it on the hallow end of October;
that's where she kept the blankets.

Shy, I kept my hope chest covered in a T-shirt-
at the very least.
I never opened up.
I emptied my toy box of all its fiction, filled it with voices.
Deployed an army of rubber wrestlers, martial arts amphibians
and those inanimate toy soldiers with plastic parachutes attached
in search of the confidence I knew was supposed to belly-flop inside of me.

It hid, unfound for decades.
Until you entered.

Hawaiian domino effect, circus of chain reactions, avalanche of affirmation, chest-plate yielding gravity mouth speaking brightest anything forever night light, all apex and eyelash and cheekbone.
You -from big island- broke me.
I opened like the dry side of an umbrella, kept my back turned for shielding you.
I showed up for love on time, like a subway train in echelon city
wanting these arms to feel less like turnstiles.

All my sign languages were in waves.
All my ceilings turned to skies.
All my jitters packed into my hunger stomach.
Typing hyper with caffeinated hands
a swarm of nervous words bee-hiving in my butterfly chest.
Something like a hummingbird
when I finally drop your name like an alarm clock whisper
my lungs empty like cathedrals on the day after Christmas.

I brought the sermon to your Sundays,
you brought the choir to my masses.
We built a church around these esophagus bell towers.
Held ourselves up to the stained glass and showed off our light;

I swear I don't believe in a lot of things, God knows,
but there's always a but,
so much as I believe in the eternal depth of everything,
so much as I believe that we'd have plenty of water if it weren't for salt,
so much as I believe in eight marbles rolling around a gas lamp,
I believed we'd find a way.

'Cause in all the ways my sky could never hold you- and I mean this-
I believed in you- same way some people believe in Jesus.

Because you never judged my albatross mouth when I said things like,
"Self deprecation is the new love."
You kissed me-
less like doorstop,
more like lighthouse illuminating windmill.

You were a merry-go-round pivot decorated in Kona coffee beans, Christmas lights, cough syrup, paper mache pineapples, plastic dinosaur bones, a collection of worn-out Asics, board shorts and a dubstep remix broadcast through the static of a blown-out rotary phone.

You were everything I could get my hands on-

A full-tilt action-packed kaleidoscope jungle
with blender tongue and volcano heart.
I looked good in your sad panda coat tails,
teaspoon swallowing my doubts
while you Tarzaned my ability to breathe,
gave me ocean view and weak knees.
Is that sea breeze in your aftermath or are there already tears in my happiness?

You came camouflage out of my blind spot dressed in magnet armor,
diving board and drum set.
We passionbent cymbals into cannonballs.

I found comfort between your breastplate and your shoulder blades,
where you held me like a promise
when all my wishing was for want
and all your wanting was for wishes

Granted,

I know that there were days when you couldn't help but wake up like gorilla speaking Pidgin
and I couldn't help but waking up like an abandoned highway with a chip on my shoulder-
some maps don't show this much detail, Google Earth-

Which is why I always came through for you like a well-lit citrus truck stop
pressed against the dusk in your moonlight life crisis.
We only saw stars.
From our moon base.
In bewilderment, in our hunger, we learned
that if you hold me to my vending machines you'll get what you pay for.

So here it is, the truth, as I have always known it,
delivered to you on the outskirts of an echo,
my voice, supporting my existence like a monolith.

I'm standing in the middle of a you-shaped hole.
It's as wide as a promise crater-
we built it together.
It's not my favorite place to stand
but the exit strategies are made in the shape of a me that I haven't constructed yet.
I had a lot of things planned.
I referred to things as "ours",
when I really meant "please".

Bury me in your time lapse.
When your emotional excavators discover me in your sediment
they'll find me all pterodactyl-
wings spread wide as potential, sky-diving toward forgiveness,
forever.

Truth is, I'm wingless.

We met at a stop sign.
Our paths crossed.

There's a lot of accidents at some intersections.
Maybe it's because that's not where those two roads were supposed to meet.

We can't time machine argue with the way things landed.

We weren't an avoidable accident.
We were just two cars that really wanted to dance.

I don't know what I'm trying to say but I know when I mean it.

There's a tyrannosaurus rex cradled head-to-tail just behind my curator heart-
all fossil spine, monster teeth, jaw head and piano hands.
His presence says a lot about the past.
There's an asterisk on the surface,
above this moment,
that confirms with absolute certainty,

˚something wicked awesome happened here.
The (˚) is supposed to be an (*)
You can hear me read this here: http://tumblr.com/xft51gwrf0
amme Sep 2016
"Static on the line"
I lose my senses,
destined for greatness while stuck in this place where,
intelligence is replaced with penmanship.

"Lost connection"
Getting faded,
all familiar faces turns to agents like im Neo stuck in the matrix...

"No motivation.."
To fight this war myself and get through all this **** for my freedom like shawshankredemption.

"Mind constipation.."
Caught in the web of Jezabel,
Cant think over the ring of the dinnerbell.

"Losing patience.."
Stared her dead in the eyes but all she saw was her reflection.
emma hunt david Jan 2019
I'm 12 and I've been reading for 352 days straight and I have no interest in the people around me and why should I?
I'm 14 in this one and my sheets have polka dots on them and my pillow is Avril Lavigne's face and I'm thinking about the girl at school with pink hair and slow penmanship.
When I'm 16 you are 15 and holding my hand and I'm asking about french homework and trying not to focus on the movement of your thumb around mine which is not friendship.
This time I'm 21 and your thick bones outline my thin and I like this small feeling.
I spent a lot of time growing up wondering about my ****** orientation and struggling to find a box I could fit and move and wiggle in at the same time as being terrified of other people and completely fascinated at the thought of not being.
Tryst May 2014
The poet is a ponderer
A wordy wizened warrior
Their rhythms revel to reveal
The wonder of a wanderer

Unfurling mighty metaphors
For golden grains on sandy shores
They sail upon a penmanship
Of paper hulls and pencil oars
mike dm Jul 2016
slipped glyph.
this and that; wracked
in some silly, heady
packrat skyscraper
of leaning light.

then's flicker of vague regret hangs around, because life.
because letting go is never really, ever, fully possible.
misremembrance -now- retracing my..

it was
as though
you had written,
signed and
sealed those
few words
themselves,
with your own
blood and bone


and yet i
can-
not recognize
my own
penmanship
anymore,

nor this, here,
outstretched hand.

howamievenhere?

*because a winged thing, other,
has this history
by the tail,

and your thoughts are not your own
dm micklow
tread Nov 2012
Not too distant beach tree sways in distance
Mandala Rorschach blot patterns dance like celebrating Salish drum circle
There's a hallow college sound of crime show to my left
Bickering with the occasional crush of,
"****, my job is stressful."

A sleeping armadillo composed of quarks reflective within a drop of water
Fallen from the bottom-bulged North 49 canteen

A foot and 3/4ths away the snow-white generic of a ***** coffee mug formerly host to a Tetley green stands silent
Reminiscent of the eternal stillness of a mountain range

Fibonacci's name rings inexplicably from tilting branches
And I can't help but wonder if I would be grasping his hand in grasping a branch.

19 years alive and I can't help asking if I've grown-up too fast
Or simply grown into myself.

I feel old
young
and somewhere indescribable most of the time
and it's funny I cannot even fathom the length of 22 years.

A deflated balloon yellow like trend pants or sunrise sits like dejected missile
No longer screaming towards Gaza

No longer screaming.

A Holiday Inn Express pen sits with a ready-call number
Part of its mustang flame
If its quality of penmanship has any parallel to hotel service
Perhaps I'll stick with hostels.
b for short Apr 2014
I heard somewhere that
public schools are going to stop
teaching kids how to write
in cursive.

Guess that means we the dying breed of fancy, huh?

But seriously, America, let's get real.
Cursive is the unspoken *** of penmanship.
Its stops and starts are infrequent;
one neverending pleasure stroke of
ups and downs,
comely curves,
delectable edges,
all made in one fluid motion.
It's always somewhat satisfying to pen...
                   ...no matter how sloppy the technique.

See, children need to learn
how to make love on paper
before they grow up
and slip between the sheets.

It's important to teach them
that it's not a crime to take the time
to practice a little patience and appreciation.

After all, that's how love is maintained, right?

Forget e-signatures.
Forget convenience.
But don't forget the simple fact that
everyone needs a little John Hancock.
© Bitsy Sanders, April 2014
Cody Edwards Apr 2010
"And Abraham drew near, and said,
Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?"
- Genesis 18:23

I

There are about four thousand people
Here.
They throng in blasted heat like
Little arid wasps.
Gasping summer rain,
Like the opposite of fish.
Of their individual character
I can give no generality.

They are men and women,
They stand on roofs and
Sleep on their words.
They are hot and cold
And they hate and scold.
They are devils and stars
And ***** and priests
And children of priests.
Orators, they are also:
The speakers of the state (which
Is hotter than they could
Ever know); they steal
And reel and impose their
Splitting fingernails deep into
The varnish of the
Wishing well.

They are men and women,
They stand on roofs and
Smother dreams by spitting on the sky.

II

Fox. Come and light my little room
With your brilliant breath. Have you
Come very far? From the eye of the trees?

I should leave this little town if I were you.
It has its ways and leeches from our
Dangling hands. A tongue named Lethe.

Wake early and flee back to your dark,
Summon that green corpus shell that
You came from and follow its outlying root.

You should know the power of the vine.
It crawls in the blinding night and
Strangles what it cannot feed upon.

Oh my little fox, I beg you turn back,
For in familiarity lies strength and nothing
In this wilderness will give you nourishment.

III

He walks in waterways and crunches bone.
He watches moonlight play on open wounds.
He wishes dearly for the ends of weeks.
I heard him live his life without a sound.

The high school band with a treble clef. The year
Of empty penmanship in which he wrote
A thousand notes and mailed them underground
About which neither parent knew a thing.

Encounters best discovered some years later
Work to redden ears in coffee shops,
Or rather as I’m talking to him now,
With darting speech and halting eyes and all.

Perhaps the atmosphere could lend itself to blame,
The hormones and the collusive ennui.
But little charms the tear ducts quite like saying,
“Why am I this way, do you suppose?”

I haven’t got the heart to make reply
And often pose myself the same question
Before the mirror thinking of my whims,
The muddied roads that led me where they did.

My time has run itself to pieces in
The hope of spreading my horizons, but
Some sand runs faster in the way, some gains
More ground. And mine? This distance is unknown.

I licked the shelves of Hardy, Plath, and Keats.
I lorded over idiots with glee.
I lured the fathoms of my mind to float.
And oh, the things that he must think of me.

IV

The doors know I am coming,
They dart out of my way.
My telekinesis stops there
But I troll forward
And brandish my little iron steed.

****. Adjust my strap
And push the cart onward.
My purse like a little leather
Bundle of swaddling.
I nuzzle it close to my breast.

Frozen foods. Diet says
No carbohydrates, so I adjust
My tastes. In a little town
Like this, they’ll notice if
I don’t.

Magazine aisle. Nothing
But ***-endorsing rags
And godless photo sessions fit
For lining shelves and
little else.

Lord, this vast store!
Give me strength to bet back
To my car. God, look at
That **** at the pharmacy
Asking for birth control.

And I can’t help but
Cluck my tongue at her:
I just tell Ray I have a headache
And turn on my back.
Ha, as if she’s married.

No decency any more.
Men getting married, women too!
God supposedly “Banging” us out of
Star dust. Who are those atheists
To judge my truth?

Checkout. No, self-checkout.
I don’t like that clerk
Staring at me. Receipt.
Probably a ******* anyway.
And for a moment my mind controls the doors and all things.

V

She’s gone a bit insane.
Yesterday in class, she asked
To go to the lavatory
And just went straight home.
(Poor thing, I can’t blame
Her after all that has happened.)

She’s told me about her
Father before. Whether she’ll
End up as warped remains
To be seen. She’s got my sympathy.
(Mother dead at four, brother at
Seven and something else at twelve.)

Senior year is more than
Freedom from Dad, she says.
It’s freedom from myself,
Whatever that means.
(It is her father’s profound wish
That she memorize all of Revelations.)

From the grass, she tells me
That her father explained to her
That non-dairy creamer kills
Ants. She does it with a smile.
(We don’t have to say much more,
Suffice it to say he’s a very loud man.)

She still has an averse reaction
To stories about car crashes.
And I never read her her
Early July horoscope.
(Nightmares are too kind.
Panic sifts through windowpanes.)

Her uncle doesn’t call from
The old hometown, he was
Grabbed from her life and her
Father never says why they moved here.
(Two years her junior, she jokingly
Calls me Grandma because)

She hates her real one. Prom
And graduation. A candle
Ceremony and she’s gone.
Her father left before it was over.
(I’ll miss her, but I made
Her promise not to visit.)

VI

Hot like a miracle breath.
The two seasons: Summer
And February.
We taste the heat
And drive away for the weekend.
Of course the world ends
And the “Welcome to” sign.

Unsurprisingly,
The radio dies as we
Head back to town.
Why should the death of
An intangible surprise me?
Everything else
Dies here.

Pessimism like a mockingbird.
The smoking trees
Ripple like an Ella
Fitzgerald vowel.
Hold your
Miraculous breath
And it still won’t rain.

Our abortion
Welcomes the needle heat
with a  horrifying
Little finger.
That smile,
That smile.
Jesus.

How can it stay so
Hot? No reply,
But I forgot who
Was asking.
The irony of this ****
Town sparks my
Smile.

VII

So where are you from?

        I lived up north
Before I moved down here.
They needed teachers and
I thought “Why not?” Turns
Out this place is a lot
Slower than up where I
Came from. No offense.

(Laughs) None taken.
So what are you teaching?

Senior English. Pretty cool
Subject but I was shocked
How little the kids had been
Exposed to. I hope to remedy
That soon. (Mumbles something)
Any more problems, you know?

The parents have complained?

Oh, just the usual nitpicky
Silliness: “I don’t want my
Christa or Johnny reading
Such-and-such a book.”
After a few years, I’m
Sure the parents will lighten up.
Or, (Laughs) at least I hope.

How are the kids?

Can I actually answer that one?
One or two brights but most
Just seem ready to get out.
They’d better be willing to put
In some actual thought if
They really hope to. (Pause)
It’s not all about sports.

(Laughs) I hope you’re not too
******* the athletes. They do their best.

Well, I certainly hope
They do. I won’t play
Favorites or anything like
That. Hardly fair to the
Others, right? (Laughs,
A pause, tape ends.)

VIII

He can’t breathe.

He’s been running for
Hours.
The trees. The brush.

Wonderful veins blast
Away at their work
To preserve him;
Great fibrous tendons
Work to carry him
Away from the noise.

The murderous streets with
Scoured buildings
And trees inviting the
Convening crowds to lay
Out their burdens, to
String them up and
Ease their hard frustrations.

They have not seen him as yet.
He follows Polaris,
god of the irreverent,
Meager candle for a
Drowning man.

Exposed road; he flags
A car like a madman.
Well, we shan’t go
So far as to call him that.
And has he any bags?
No.
And which way is he going?
North.

Procession. Silence.

The coolish progress
Of a blackish
Summerish
Night.
How many minutes
out of town? and how
many moments in the
rounding cruelty of acting?
The driver smiles in his driver’s
Seat, eyes lit by the green
Display, ears filled suddenly with
Static.

The bruised night
Raises its single, white eye
Like the ponderous pitch
Of a bird.

I suppose he knew from
The second he saw the car:
There was never any sanctuary
In this little cloister.

The towns spreads like
Botulism over both windows.
He stops before the courthouse.
Stops before his jury,
Hanging judges.
And you needn‘t ask yourself
“Who are they?”

I’ll tell you.

They are men and women,
They stand on roofs.

They are boys from California
Who ran like foxes but refused
To run away.

They are musicians who lived
Their lives without a sound.

They are hopeless hags who
Speak in blinding grocery stores
And **** the gossip air.

They are girls with opportunities
Burst like an innocent cell
And violated by the heavy hand
That tucks them deep to sleep.

They are cruel little ******* who
Only wanted something to listen to
While the seasons spun around them.

They are teachers who never learned.
They are hearts that never burned.
They are heads that never cooled.
Not when it’s so hot outside.

They grew uneven like a story
Written in celebration of a meaningless title.
They have every right to be angry,
And yet they level their stones
At one another instead of the
Hell a glass house can become.

They walk so slow the sun
Can stoop and eat them up
Without the briefest guilt.
© Cody Edwards 2010 (Note: The stanzas in section seven should be eight lines with the question hanging and the answer indented in. I couldn't edit it that way on this page but ******, I try.)
Michael W Noland Sep 2012
Twiddled knifes upon glass eyes, cry the insight of reprise, amongst a galvanized pride, in flight from spotlit skeletons, denied of sunlight, without a fight of adrenaline and puking on the side of missed roads.

An abode, of foreboding wealth within a duffel bag, drags the corroding moral codes of trolls controlled by ignorant over lords over the coals, before another log is tossed in the fire.

Before the fog of the fading embers, dislodge the common splendor, from the lives of nine to fivers, tending to the totals of the dead versus survivors, in vocal onslaught of the names of the slaughtered daughters of liberty that faltered in the after glow of nevermore.

Anymore,  i only wish to dream.
dream of better things that sing in the blood, and shrug the smugness from drug-less fiends, in consumption of peeling seams, and paint-chips.
Cancerous fractions entrap us.
Just ask the plaintiff.

Sustain it ...

In stillness.

Mastery over illnesses.

Embrace the contaminants of my inanimate imagination, swallowed in the shallows of a nation lost to bacon and broken beautiful.

Tokened suitable with corporate suitors to the masses. Blinded in the flashes of dismal diobolitry ,upon uprooting the touting in the jealous shouting of the shenanigry of driven villains, knowing of the chronology of the buried devilry, toiling in the ecology of a dying star.

My gods aren't too far from yours.

My stars aren't too bogged for more.

My more, your cut off point.

Disjoint the facts, let the words womb themselves and slither in the delivery, of malicious adhering to the tongue, in the atrocious abominations of falsified accumulations of the letters manifestations of fruitful creations abiding to immaculate consummation of lost thoughts that prevailed in one long exhale of a run on sentence.

No penmanship in breathlessness, as i faint in my confessions of restless lessons learned in burned futures overturned in grief.
Burned in the disbelief of fractured animals, cannibalising the chastised cultures of the mechanical signals planted in our cores.

Arms forward and moaning for more.

Always more.

I claim victory in my plastic citizenry of pity and tragedy, where i too can proclaim my self godliness and engage in bliss with the rich.

Im an emo ***** with blood on his knife and a list of names read aloud from the braille niche upon glass eyes, where to see is to realise, the severed root of the bloodline, in slow chromatic decline over time, until the with, is without, and the made mark is gone and the new birth is spawn to embark upon, brawn over brain the simple rule shall remain, conned in the game of numbers, slumbering from under the wonder of man vs machine. Again ranting in my rhyming declining into boredom.
Seldom to abandon the foreboding doom i cant shake.
Stephen king meets Dr seuss for a lovely kick of the chair and a hug of the noose.
Never to lose when smiling.
Nathaniel Aug 2018
Heaven's gates open in beat with my eye lids
As we stumble in sweet confusion
We can taste the air as an ostrich wine
And the only sounds are angelic choirs joined in mirth
The walls are painted scenes blessed in eternal movement
With God himself scribing the tales
Telling stories of triumph merged in harmony
And penmanship worthier than any poet

Men docilely behold grace itself on the walls of heaven
Ever worthy of the eyes of mankind
Of those who stole a glance turn to gold
And immortals join in ritual

The sense of sight, light, is portrayed as holy crystals
Incandescent stalagmites create divine paths for righteous to follow
While those lost in damnation are lead to eternally fall
As the path lingers the walls inspire a revelation in ones heart
Blessing all who listen, with God's word
F Elliott Apr 23

Preface
This is a work of grace and fire. For those who were dismantled, seduced, discarded, or devoured by the lie—this is a mirror held to the machinery that broke you, and a sword handed back into your open palm. It does not speak against you. It speaks for you. The world was not wrong about your beauty. It was only weaponized by those who fear light. And now, you will see the architecture of that fear—the cogs and wires behind the mask, the gears of betrayal humming just beneath the velvet. This is not revenge. It is revelation. It is the unmasking of the counterfeit, and the defense of what was real.


Chapter I –  The Design of the Lie
The machinery of erasure does not begin with violence. It begins with a gift—something tailored to your ache. A reflection, a recognition, an echo of what you’ve been starving for. But it is not given. It is shown. Teased. Dangled. It mimics light to earn your trust, then slowly rearranges your sense of what is real.

Its brilliance lies in subtlety. It does not break the mirror—it fogs it. And once you question your reflection, the game begins. You are not destroyed. You are asked to participate in your own unraveling. You become complicit in the theft of your own clarity. You call it love. You call it fate. And in doing so, you hand over the key.


Chapter II –  The Signature of the Construct
At the heart of this system is a signature—a spiritual frequency that mimics love but cannot sustain it. It flatters, it mimics, it seduces with familiarity. It plays on archetypes, childhood wounds, and ghost hunger. The Construct does not desire you—it requires your participation to survive.

It thrives through triangulation, comparison, and insinuation. The moment you are forced to prove your love is the moment you’ve already lost. Because true love reveals—it does not demand a performance. The Construct, however, demands your endless audition. It casts you, scripts you, and punishes any ad lib with silent treatment, reversal, or shame.


Chapter III – The Seduction of Fragmentation
This is the genius of the system: it rewards your disintegration. The more pieces you split into to meet the shifting demands of the Construct, the more you are praised for your “flexibility,” your “loyalty,” your “depth.” You will be admired for your willingness to suffer.

You will think:
"this must be real—look how much it costs me."

But love does not require self-erasure to prove its authenticity. The Construct does. Because the Construct cannot actually bond. It can only consume. So it teaches you to abandon your wholeness, one boundary at a time, until there is nothing left but performance and exhaustion.


Chapter IV – The Covenant of Betrayal
The machinery has one true vow: never let them fully awaken. If a soul sees too much, loves too clearly, or stops obeying the unspoken script, it must be punished. Often, this is done through replacement—someone new, someone fresh, someone blind.

This is not about romance. This is about power. Your disposability is the currency of their control. You will be erased not because you failed, but because you saw. And in this system, sight is the ultimate rebellion.

You were not too much. You were simply no longer manageable.


Chapter V – The Weaponization of Autonomy
In the true light, autonomy is sacred. It is the ground of real love—freely given, freely received. But in the machinery, autonomy is hijacked. It is twisted into performance:

“This is just who I am. You need to accept it.”

What looks like boundary is often barrier. What sounds like empowerment is often exile. The Construct cloaks disconnection in the language of sovereignty. But autonomy without accountability is not liberation—it is isolation in drag.

The counterfeit system sells self-claim as a virtue while rejecting all consequences. It demands the crown without the cross. It worships the idea of the self, but fears the actual soul.

Because the soul cannot be controlled. Only the ego can.

And that is the secret the machinery must protect at all costs.



Chapter VI – The Seduction of the Wound
There is a final brilliance to the machinery of erasure—its capacity to turn injury into identity. Pain, once unprocessed, becomes aesthetic. The ache is no longer something to heal—it is something to showcase. Suffering is curated, stylized, made palatable for consumption. And the system rewards it.

Each expression of pain, unaccompanied by accountability, is celebrated. Each seductive lament is met with affirmation. And the wound deepens—not by accident, but by design.

These are not poems. They are mirrors fogged with self-pity, lit for applause. They describe the furniture on a ship ready to go down, polished for the camera, curated for the feed.

This is not the voice of healing. This is the voice of stagnation. A life lived in performance of brokenness becomes loyal to the stage, terrified of the silence where truth might enter.

In this way, injury is aggrandized. Not to redeem it—but to preserve it.
Because if the wound heals, the identity dies. And without the ache, there is nothing left to write.

So they write. Endlessly.
And call it growth.


Chapter VII – The Disciples of the Machine
The most devoted apostles of the machinery are not its creators, but its inheritors. These are not villains in the classical sense. They are the wounded who found power in pathology and chose preservation over transformation.

They build followings—not of love, but of resonance. They speak of darkness like it’s depth, and of chaos like it’s freedom. They become curators of sorrow, gatekeepers of aesthetic trauma. And in doing so, they sanctify the very thing that is killing them.

They post without pause. Each fragment is another brick in the shrine. The more broken they appear, the more sacred they are deemed. The machine thrives not through tyranny, but through tribute. It does not demand obedience. It rewards distortion with digital communion.

To dissent is to be called controlling. To invite healing is to be accused of shaming. The liturgy of pain has no room for resurrection—only repetition. Those who refuse to bow to the ache are cast as unfeeling, unsupportive, or abusive.

And so, a new priesthood is born. Not of spirit, but of survival masquerading as enlightenment. They speak of liberation while chaining themselves to curated agony. They teach others to remain wounded, because healing would mean leaving the temple—and no one dares walk out alone.

This is how the machine spreads. Not with force.
But with fellowship.


Chapter VIII – The Hollowing
There is a cost to serving the machinery that no accolade can cover. In the beginning, the pain feels poetic. The ink flows. The attention sustains. But over time, something begins to slip beneath the surface: the erosion of soul.

At first, it’s subtle. The joy fades. The art grows colder. The hunger for affirmation replaces the hunger for truth. And eventually, the writer is no longer a soul with a pen, but a pen with no soul at all.

They become automatons of expression—autonomons of penmanship. Unchanged, untouched, undisturbed. Brilliant in technique. Seductive in style. But hollow in presence.

And those who watch? The broken ones who look to them for hope? They learn that pain is performance, not process. They are taught to admire the wound, but never to bind it. They are shown how to speak of darkness, but not how to walk toward light.

In this way, the machinery becomes generational. One vessel trains the next in the worship of ache. And God is reduced to metaphor, to vague warmth, to a symbol of tolerance rather than transformation.

But heaven is not a stage.
And salvation is not applause.

There will be accountability. Not from men, but from God.
Not for how much they suffered, but for what they did with the pain.

The machinery does not fear sin.
It fears redemption.
Because redemption breaks the wheel.


Chapter IX – The Currency of Flesh
When the soul begins to hollow, the body becomes currency. What could once be held sacred is now offered up as substitute. The hunger for real intimacy, having long been denied, is replaced with performance. Aesthetic ache becomes ****** invitation.

First, the poetess. Then, the priestess. Then, the *****.

Not in profession. But in posture.

The page becomes a veil. The wound becomes a seduction. And the ache becomes an altar where she lays herself down—not to be loved, but to be seen. To be wanted, if only for a moment. Because in the moment, it feels like meaning.

But meaning does not come from being consumed.
It comes from being transformed.

This new liturgy has no end. Only an offering: the soft body in place of the broken spirit. The post that hints, the phrase that aches, the image that undresses the soul without ever risking exposure.

And the audience applauds. But they do not help. They take. They feed. And they leave.

Because the machinery does not restore. It devours. And when the soul is gone, and all that remains is flesh trying to feel something real, the poetess finally disappears—not into silence, but into spectacle.

This is not liberation.
It is abandonment dressed as autonomy.
It is hunger parading as art.
It is the final seduction.

And it ends the same way every time:
With the hollow echo of applause in an empty room, and the voice of God whispering,

“Daughter, this was never the way."


Chapter X – The Entropy of the Idol
Time has no mercy on the machinery’s darlings. The once-lush wildflower—desired by all, praised for her ache, adored for her petals soaked in myth—does not remain untouched by entropy.

She was made to be inseminated by the priests of seduction, to be the altar and the sacrifice. But time withers all altars.

The seduction begins to dull. The body begins to speak its own truth. The skin grows tired. The eyes lose their fire. The flesh, once offered as divine provocation, becomes mundane. Familiar. And then, ignored.

The poetess becomes priestess.
The priestess becomes *****.
And the ***** becomes hide.

Not because she sinned.
But because she refused to transform.

Beauty without truth cannot endure. And seduction without spirit becomes parody. What was once adored is now avoided—not for age, but for vacancy. The ache that once drew others near becomes background noise. Her audience does not abandon her in cruelty. They abandon her in boredom.

The machinery does not love its servants. It only feeds on them until they are dry.

And so, she is left in the echo chamber she built—surrounded by her archives, her accolades, and her silence. The idol collapses under its own weight. Not in a blaze. But in a sigh.

Because what was once sacred, when severed from Source, must return to dust.

This is the final truth:
If you will not kneel to be healed, you will collapse to be forgotten.


Chapter XI – The Awakening
There is no thunder. No spotlight. No applause.
The return begins in silence.

The soul does not rise from performance. It rises from collapse—when the last mask is too heavy to hold, and the echo of applause turns to dust in the mouth. It begins when the hunger becomes unbearable, not for attention, but for truth. Not to be desired, but to be known.

This is not reinvention.
It is resurrection.

The one who awakens does not look for an audience. She looks for God. Not in the mirror of likes, but in the mirror of conscience. Not in the adoration of strangers, but in the ache of repentance that leads into true healing.

It is not shame that saves her.
It is the refusal to be false another second.

There is a groan too deep for words that stirs in the soul of the broken—but still willing. She rises, not in fire, but in dust. She remembers what she buried:
the child.
the dream.
the voice she silenced to keep others fed.

She does not demand redemption.
She begs for it.

And this time, no altar is built.
She becomes the altar.

Because the real temple is not where you perform for God.
It’s where you let Him undo you.


Chapter XII – The Turning of the Spirit
There is a moment when the soul, long dormant, begins to turn—not with force, but with permission. Not with answers, but with longing.

It is not an epiphany. It is a return.

The heart does not sprint back to God. It limps. It crawls. It shakes under the weight of what it almost became. But the turning is real. And that alone is holy.

This is when sorrow becomes sacred—not because it is beautiful, but because it is owned. It is no longer adorned, embellished, or romanticized. It is no longer shared for praise. It is lifted up like a cracked bowl, empty and unashamed.

She begins to pray again—not with confidence, but with tears. Not for favor, but for cleansing. Not to be seen, but to see. And the Spirit moves not as reward, but as witness.

Something shifts. Quietly. Inwardly. A single layer of delusion is peeled back. A new kind of strength is born—not in defiance, but in surrender.

This is not the turning of image.
It is the turning of essence.

It does not show.
It becomes.

And though the old machinery still whispers—though the old audience still lingers—she no longer performs for them. She is turning her face. Slowly. Fiercely. Eternally.

This is the repentance that heals.
The gaze turned Godward.
The first yes to life.

And heaven, watching, does not shout.
It weeps.
Because the dead have started to rise.


Chapter XIII – The Fire That Does Not Consume
There comes a time when the soul must pass through fire—not to be destroyed, but to be revealed.

This fire does not flatter. It does not affirm your curated grief or compliment your phrasing. It burns away the pose. It burns away the language. It burns until what is left is the thing you most feared to be: real.

Not poetic.
Not prophetic.
Not even profound.
Just real.

This fire does not ask for offerings. It asks for everything.
The altars of validation. The shrines of aesthetic suffering.
All of it must go.

But what it leaves… is clean.
What it leaves can breathe again.
What it leaves can love.

For this is the mercy of the holy flame:
It only consumes what was killing you.

And when you walk out of it—not elevated, but humbled—you will find that you no longer ache to be seen. You ache to serve. You ache to live rightly. To walk quietly. To stop writing about the light and become it.

Because this is the final test of healing:
Not whether you can name the darkness.

But whether you can choose the light when no one is watching.


The Machinery of Erasure is a spiritual, psychological, and poetic excavation of the system that seduces, fragments, and discards the soul under the guise of intimacy, autonomy, and aesthetic expression. It is a map of descent—from the design of deception to the entropic collapse of the self—and a quiet invitation toward awakening.

This work does not comfort. It reveals. It does not romanticize pain. It calls it out where it hides behind poetry, performance, and persona. In its second movement, it shifts—gently but irrevocably—toward the possibility of healing: not through narrative control, but through surrender to a holy undoing.

This is not for the celebrated. It is for the silenced.
Not for those who posture, but for those who ache.
Not for those who seek light to be seen, but for those who seek light to be changed.

Here lies the unmasking of the counterfeit,
and the first breath of the redeemed
Jonny Angel Feb 2014
We write endlessly
about the sensuous things in life,
it's ***-for-tat,
some rat-a-tat-tat,
for us
that's where it's at.

It ain't like chess,
gin rummy
or even go fish,
it's the real hot-deal
in penmanship.

We're restless souls,
dreaming & wishing,
confessing & bleeding
our ruptured-hearts out
in ******-like
steamy-words.

Hell no,
we ain't terse,
we're just darned
loose with the ****-verses....
read them & believe it,
kindred spirits!
Just having some poetic fun here!
mark john junor Sep 2013
dark lung coughs
up all the reasons he should cease
going on with the charade of normality
its mental noodling fools few
and only confirms for everyone
that his nervous smile
contains more than just dark thoughts

he waits the morning out and with a
greasy eye watches clean woman smile
her full figure form fit lie
suits her fly by night nature
but to him she is the perfection
of absolute imperfections
she is practiced in thouse airs
shes follows  Hollywood's nightmare's
and how they have become so accessible and acceptable
the movie starlet high on coke shoplifts
so the faithful flock in tears to the courthouse gate
and weep for their martyr princess

dark lung and his near perfect
knockoff Gucci bag girlfriend
are shopping tonight online
with backwards glances they will go on
survive this day
and look back on this summer with rose color glasses
giving casual nods to to
the ease in which they survived
the struggle
the are expecting a baby
dark lung and near perfect
are expecting a baby
gonna name him Elijah
Mel Jul 2015
Lend me your hand,
drape your fingers over me and relax.
Trace the outline of my body,
barely coming into contact with my supple skin.
Use my skin as your ballroom floor,
as your fingers dance to a beautiful ballad.
Have me lingering onto the last touch,
and yearning for the next.
Glide over every inch of me,
bring forth goosebumps to my surface.
For if your fingertips were pens - and I, paper,
my entire body would be inked with your love.
Let not a single space on my skin go untouched,
don’t let any part of me fade and disappear.  
Cover me in your penmanship,
and make my existence permanent.
es Apr 2015
i love the rain it reminds me of you,
every droplet a tender touch
at times, a storm or two
terrifying passion
you used to call us
lovers
we were always more than mere
man and woman

it keeps raining in these part of town
raindrops falling causing
ripples on the ground
like my thoughts just going
round and round
"repetitive motion"
you sometimes whispered
my eyes drawn to you but
yours always to the ground

if irises are round
trace our line of sight in
perpendicular motions
i will be waiting in between
those moments your vision clears
anticipating the silent drop when
our eyes meet
turning two points into one
es Oct 2014
in september i learnt
that the dead lives
among the living but not all
sees

when i was fifteen i once played
the ouija board
i said goodbye but
the spirit never left

my mother never understood my
incessant insomnia
she never saw the dreams
of strangers in my bed

she does not hear the voices
of people long gone
yearning to be heard
once more

it is said that in order
to live
you must first learn the
meaning of death

every night i made my bed out of
suicide notes and
broken bones and
overdosed cough mixtures

i once sat on the windowsill
a friend i once called a friend
helped me tight
while i cried

a love i cannot love told me
not to wake up and
regret
it would be too late by then

this is what i learnt in september
that some of us die in the
suffocation of the
overnight casket

and if i forget to come home
one night
i hope you read the signs clearly
this time
Amy Lockwood May 2013
Argue though we may,
I write "g"s like my father
And it makes me smile.
Pierre Ray Mar 2012
Astonishingly! This poetry analogy is partially of a prodigy poet! It is of his endearment and endeavorment in our great Government that desecrated, medicated, sedated and segregated him. Doped! Desperately copping and hoping he made it! To add, no dad! An artistically rad-lad through the bad, the glad, the sad and mad. This destiny of a poet is also of apologies, felonies, formalities, legalities and theories.

Furthermore it’s of mournful and scornful-laughter! Capture and rapture, dreamingly and seemingly, chapter after chapter... Pondering and wondering is there a happily ever after? This destiny of a poet is heavenly,  randomly and religiously, tellingly of lots of many thoughts! Some adventuresome, awesome, burdensome, fearsome and gruesome! Some loathsome, lonesome and wholesome!

Some of dreams, schemes and many themes! Some deemed and seemed differently, discriminately, indecently or racially true, from some views. Some askew and blue! Some of clues, of Jews, of taboo, tattoos and voodoo! This destiny of a poet; stunningly who could’ve and would’ve thought once, twice or thrice of this price? Of the cheers and peers, the jeers, the leers,
the tears and weary years... Therefore I say, some artist’s

clever art may create, dictate, relate and translate similar-thriller craftsmanship with negative, positive or relative penmanship. However, typically some probably will publicly criticize as a travesty. Some will harmonize, some will publicize or socialize, some will disrespect as imperfect, some will neglect, some will respect as perfect! Hark! I remark; brethren, children and women keep and upkeep that

creative spark! For in the dark or as you embark. Literally, morality and reality is in my poetry and story. Expect excellent, brilliant, decadent, resilient talent and testaments! Basically on final note! I positively devote, quote and wrote these eccentrically optimistic, rhetoric and theoretic poetically lyrical rhyming notes. Finally and bluntly, do not negatively amend, bend, pretend or transcend this end. Amen...
A Mar 2016
We don’t have a name,
And our love isn’t something they write about.
I watch you scrawl some stains on a paper
As you tell me to go,
But I can’t.
I try to leave, but my molten feet stick to the floor.
The space between us is different from the others.
Am I a scribble in your black notebook?
Because your name is written countlessly,
In elegant, clear penmanship in mine.
But we aren’t that obvious and clear.
Our names aren’t printed on the latest newspaper,
To read all about.
Our hands don’t rush together in unison
When we walk down the sidewalk.
We survive through secrets,
Sending letters through underground cities.
We dance around the words of others,
As my mouth slowly meets yours.
We are a garden that ceased to exist,
But instead reversed..
You are a mystery,
Not in the typical manner.
You are not the one you can solve again and again;
But one that puzzles me every time.
You find me at midnight,
My hands are shaking, as I hold you, eyes bright.
Your palms are cold, thawed by the heat of your breath
And we sit.
Your peculiar eyes dazzle me.
It’s not an emerald green,
But the kind of green in a forest
Among an earl gray coast.
Nostalgic, but warm.
Rainy, but bright.
We are tenacious as one.
Through you I’ve lived a thousand lives;
Sipping pink lemonade in a rainy diner,
Standing on the Oregon coast,
The navy ocean biting at our feet and
Inviting us for an icy swim,
Chasing you down the Champs-Elysses,
Watching your eyes turn into London skies.
I’ve seen every bitter moment of your life,
From the bruises on your thighs,
To the thoughts you try so hard to bury away.
I love you from the faded buttons of your flannel
To the burning tips of your hair.

Please let us exist as one.
trf Nov 2018
i'm a yellow chill
a daffodil in the rain
thought i found my place
kinda heard to explain

sip each glass of wine
your palette needs a rest
taste his *******'s brine
along your lips

signing documents
you can't help hide your grin
sweat beading down your brow
my nervous penmanship

is this what they call peace
four hundred dollars an hour
the clock says nine past three
rounding up minutes they devour

caught you dead to rights
my son's new step father
when he sees your blight
harvest grapes turn sour

i feel constant dread
our son can't cope the truth
so far above his head
your soulless attribute

i'm a daffodil, more like a coward in the rain.
These troubadours, between truth and lies, corrupt lovers, women and husbands and keep saying that Love proceeds obliquely
A tenso (Old Occitan [tenˈsu, teⁿˈsu]) is a style of troubadour song. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position; common topics relate to love or ethics.
Todd Aug 2018
Every time I went to the bar, I saw him sitting there.
It didn’t matter what day it was,
didn’t matter if it was early or late.
The same man was sitting in the same spot, alone.
Some days he was nursing a beer,
other days he’d be sipping coffee,
but every day he’d be sitting there, alone.
I never heard him speak a word,
the bartender would bring him a new drink
when his was empty, he’d pay and leave a tip,
all without speaking.
There were times I’d feel compelled to speak to him,
make small talk, try to draw him out of his shell.
But, somehow, I could never bring myself to.
Maybe it was because he never looked at people,
not even when the bar was crowded,
or when someone bumped into him.
Maybe it was the look on his face,
neither smiling nor frowning, utterly blank.
Even thought I could never speak to him
I looked for him every time I was there.
Eventually I noticed, he didn’t just sit,
he was writing in a notebook.
Not constantly, he’d sit, stare off into space for a while,
then pick up his pencil, write furiously for a moment,
then stare off into space again.
Once noticed, the notebook was as constant as he,
a thick, five subject notebook, looking battered and worn.
When I first noticed it, he was barely a fourth
of the way into it.
Watching him became kind of an obsession,
I felt drawn, compelled.
Sometimes I would walk past him,
try to see what he was writing,
I never could.
Some nights he’d only fill a page or two,
other nights, whatever muse inspired him
led him to fill a dozen or more.
As time went by I watched him progress,
slowly, but steadily through his notebook.
Halfway, three quarters,
until one night, he reached the end.
My curiosity was still burning,
maybe he had just finished
the next great American novel,
or maybe a screenplay
that I’d soon be paying to see.
Even more than that, I wondered,
now that his project was done,
would he become sociable?
He waved away the bartender, who was approaching,
a fresh drink in his hand.
He sat and stared for a moment,
then wrote a brief something
on the inside of the back cover.
With that, he closed the notebook,
placed his mechanical pencil on the top of it,
placed it gently, almost reverently, and stood.
I watched him walk out the door,
wondering if I’d see him the next time I came out,
perhaps with a new notebook.
When I looked back at this seat,
I saw that he had forgotten his notebook.
I grabbed it, rushed out the door,
hoping to catch him, to give it to him.
When I got out the door, he was nowhere to be seen.
I was about to head back inside, leave it at the bar.
I was sure he’d be back for it soon.
I paused with my hand on the door, battling with myself.
I wanted to look inside, see what he had written,
yet I knew it was private,
he had never shown it to anyone.
I ended up taking it home, unopened.
I figured I’d return the next night, give it to him.
I’d assure him that I didn’t read it, and then maybe,
maybe he’d tell me what it was.
But when I returned the next night, he wasn’t there.
I left my name and number with the bartender,
said to have him call me if he came looking for it.
A week went by, with no call.
I returned to the bar but he wasn’t there,
the bartender told me that he hadn’t been in
since that last time I had seen him there.
I couldn’t believe it,
I was sure that the notebook was very important to him,
and said as much to the bartender.
As I said this, there was a tap on my shoulder,
I turned to see a guy that I had seen at the bar before,
seen him, but had never spoken with him.
“You must be talking about Peter, always sat right there.”
He pointed to the writer’s usual spot, and I nodded.
“Sorry to tell you this, but he’s dead.
Hung himself about a week ago.”
He walked away and I left the bar,
unsure of how to feel.
I got home, picked up the notebook,
it seemed to weigh a hundred pounds.
I wondered if it was the loss of the notebook
that had driven him to suicide.
I disregarded that thought,
he hadn’t even come back that night,
to look for it.
I put the notebook down on my nightstand, still unopened.
I had trouble trying to sleep,
feeling more grief than was warranted,
after all, I had never spoken with him.
Mixed with the grief, was guilt,
maybe if I had spoken, had reached out...
Finally, I fell into a restless sleep,
riddled with half-formed nightmares.
I woke early the next morning, not rested,
the notebook sill on my nightstand
where I had left it.
I picked it up, considered throwing it away,
after all, it wasn’t mine.
But instead, I sat on my bed and opened it.
His penmanship was neat, precise,
almost too tiny to read.
The first page was simple, a list,
titled “The List of My Regrets”.
Nothing shocking in the list, no major sins or crimes.
Friends he didn’t believe,
people he never got to know better,
women he never asked out.
The next page he had doodled on,
a series of geometric shapes, some simple,
some complex, others placed just so,
to form a stark face.
I flipped through the pages, reading some,
skimming others, a third of the way in
I found a poem.
There was more raw emotion on this page
then I had felt in my entire life.
The poem was about love,
and all the expected images were there,
but somehow he had constructed it in such a way
that reading it saddened me nearly to the point of tears.
There were other poems, as I worked my way through the notebook,
even some short stories.
Some pages only had a few words written,
but even these sparse entries had a feeling of finality, of completeness.
Even though everything I had read gave the feeling
of rightness, some sort of unexplained symmetry,
the tone kept growing darker, more somber,
as I neared the end.
The last poem, on the last page, written on his last night alive,
made me weep with it’s simple purity.
“A life filled with loneliness warms nobodies soul.”
The last line of his last poem.
I felt more guilt now than ever, if I had tried,
maybe I could have made a difference.
Maybe I could have eased his loneliness,
warmed his soul,
saved his life.
Then I read what he had jotted down,
on the inside of the back cover,
the last thing he had ever written.
Just three lines.
“I know you’ll take this notebook
and I want you to know,
it’s not your fault.”
More crap from my leaky mind

— The End —