[x]

Therapists, I don't like their taste.i.
in 7th grade
i didn’t know depression
until she told me her name,
carving forever scratches
along my limbs like
little love notes on the bark
of a tree.

she stole my rings
and left me hollow.

ii.
i had only ever met anxiety
in passing, until one day
he handed me power and told me
to hurt someone else with it.

iii.
inexperienced,
with an uncontrollable
quivering in my fingers,
he whispered, “ to survive,
you must learn quickly.”
as i shoved the bevel of a needle
into a strangers arm.

iv.
so, if a therapist
could talk away my scars
like iodine disinfects,
guide the ships
through

Please,don’t make me
fall in love with you,
again.

I don’t want to remember you,
those Sunday morning
wake-me-up kisses,
or the way your
lost boy eyes always,
always found a way
to find mine.

There are only so many times
I can allow you to slice
through my scar tissue
before I finally

fall
ap art.

lion boyi knew a boy with
eyes of gold & fire
in his footsteps.

he would roar to the
stars, declaring himself
as fearless as a king
& as regal as a lion.

"ad lucem,"
he would announce
every night when leo
would coax the virgin
from her radiant
castle.

five times around the
sun & loyal fangs bared
to shield his kingdom,
my lion boy
dances with flames.

Confessionsthere’s a lot I never told you

one. I have a habit of lying, about
the simple things (like, yes I
forgot to remember and I swear by
soul mates and I’m in love
with your susurrus voice
and no, I’m really doing fine).

It was not an act of infidelity because
I believed it, too.

two. I’m infatuated with the concept
that I am more or less fictional, the
delusive beauty a million men will
dedicate novels to: I am fragile,

a dust angel sent to save the world
from commonalities and
myself.

three. Since I’m not allowed
to remember your name

I will commemorate you
in acts of escapism,
killing off the pieces
o

ExposureThe wind invites itself
from underneath my door,
it reaches under
it pulls open-
the leaves come in.
A bird hops over the
threshold and tilts its
head in quick, informative
motions.

The rains follow in
after the wind and
now I have to reason with
both the animals and the storm.

Those abandoned wooden barns
with one wall collapsed,
overgrown with vines and ferns.
The epitome of giving in.

I close the door
and all the windows,
leave it to the glass
to challenge the rain.

That little bird,
somewhere in here,
is searching for where
the wind has gone.

Thunder knocks
once, then
twice.

I imagine lying
on the hood of a car
beneath the desert su

i shouldn't write when i'm stonedpeople say you're
an asshole. but that's
okay because people say
i'm an asshole, too. maybe
that's one of the reasons
you love me and i love you.

but i think more than that,
i think the biggest reason
we're drawn to each other is
that neither of us fit anywhere.
we are both lonely. and we are sad.
but we don't care, and we love it.

we are good at being
alone. we are good at
being together. if i could,
i would paint a picture
of two souls tethered close
but sitting in separate rooms
and i would point to it. then you
would understand why we will
never come apart.

String TheoryThis is determination,
existential numbness in which
I drown from the paranoid spittle
of that dreary-eyed girl
lost in the mirror.

Jesus,
what would you do

if you saw me now, all grown in
to my predetermined curves and
the nihilistic fabrications knotted in my skin.

Maybe you still want to be
a brain surgeon. Maybe you still
weep when you’re happy and stop
when you’re lonely, drooping over like
the puppet no one remembered. Maybe
you still smoke like it’s a defiance, and love
like it’s a war; maybe time preserved you
like a corpse in formaldehyde, and maybe

you still think of me,
too.

ExperimentalistShe always said she was
An experimentalist.
I knew otherwise.
This girl was raised to
Believe that the ability of
Counting the bones in your
Rib cage is beautiful.
Sixteen years old
With sand in her blood
And shoulder blades
As sharp as knives
As long as wings.
That day I knew
Her smiles were painful
And her laughs were just
Recorded in her throat
From so much practice
In a life that was once
So happy.

A little punk rocker with a gift for singing songsGirl with the rock and roll smirk curled behind her teeth
Burning her insides for fun because there wasn’t much else to do
Aside from skipping stones across car parks
And sipping the last dregs of forbidden liquor
Behind broken trees to keep up the act of normality

Late at night when the moon is asleep
She lies on dismantled bed frames
Counting stars because lambs are too often sent to the slaughter
Lucky star heartbeats and posy veins
Hides broken windows behind her pupils

Ceiling lights tracing patterns on her cheekbones
As late night contemplation's lead back to Rome
Atlas limbs curled into her ribs
With a sense of obligation she

this habiti have this habit of thinking without thinking.

my mind will be walking down a road
between cities

while i am plugging away at the factory,
while i am putting groceries away.

if someone were to ask me what i was thinking,
i wouldn’t know what to say.

i would have to wait hours,
long after they’ve gone,

until my mind comes through the door,
tracking all manner of shit onto the floor,

and explains himself.

Love LettersWith their condescending ink
They wrote patterns of gold
Upon parchment leather paper
Within letters of words foretold

Perhaps with this envelope
And its rose tainted scent
I can find peace in myself
In the summer days spent

Where I took in the musky smell
Of your heart.
As I held it against my chest
I picked up a pen and began to start

Dear love, oh love
How I wish to see your lovely face
These days, these mornings are
What keep me hoping in sovereign grace...

Sea sonnet for the girl with ocean eyesShe was southern Californian storms
On a good day
When the skies nursed the shoreline like a wound
And the rain tasted like two scoops of mint chip ice cream

She held the nebula in her palms
And poured it out onto the sidewalk
So that the gutters would have something
To talk about at night

She swallowed the ocean
And held it in her eyes
deep pools
Of mountain rock blue straining against the sky
The bluest eyes I’d ever seen
Sparrow girl with the breathless wings

Embellished in vinyl’s and cassette tapes
Gramophone gilded lashes and half-moon wrists made up
Paper tapestries taped together with Shakespeare and Green

Sunday mor

AdultsI envy those people
who leave home
at eighteen
and live like twenty-five year olds,
looking out for themselves
like folks did in the good ol’ days,
drinking whiskey straight,
driving all night with no limits,
loving and fucking without apology,
never having to remind someone
that they’re old enough—
Goddamnit, they’re old enough
and if they’re not cut loose
they’ll suffocate to death

without ever having breathed
on their own.

Alaska is hiding behind her eyesA girl caught up in the same game
Where circus tricks and trapeze artists
Are nothing compared to the burning of lungs
Where insomnia stains the people’s smiles
In a pale wash of sea foam angst bottled up and thrown
Into the horizon where the sky meets the earth
In a disjointed seam

She had hurricane rage eyes
And wishbone sleeves pulled tightly across her chest
To suppress her Medusa heart from cracking
The stars open and drinking their flames

Ocean funeral where Chaconne
Is played to sirens and sea urchins
Coiled beneath the oily depths of seascapes
Where her kite string spines push against the thin membrane
Of split grin skie

On the road again searching for lost thingsLake bones carved into words
The slow baked Texas heat seeping into
Galaxy veins and Saturn ring irises
Like cross hatched road maps
Leading to lost cities gilded in gold
The skies nursing oil spills like a wound

Your cat eye palpitations lingering
Behind drowsy eyelids
Where childhood adventures of never growing up
Spark between neurons and sneakers pounding
On old dirt tracks
Boyish dreams of Milky Way heroes
Make up the constellations of your breathing

Browse More Like This

Download File
TXT, 796 bytes more ▶

More from ~jackgunski

Horizon

Where is my head?
Is it above the hills,
Where I saw the farmer,
Who saw the real estate agent,
Who saw the home owner,
Who saw the man of metal?

Where is my head?
Did I lose it in the drying machine?
Did I leave it in my pocket
Next to my cell phone,
Next to my change,
Next to my spare head?

Did my head leave me?
Did my head seek an open field
Where it felt safe to scream?
Did it go home?
Is it waiting on my pillow
Waiting for precious sleep?

Did my head leave me?
Did it run forward?
Will it ever come back?
Perhaps it will tell me what it saw.
Maybe it will talk about the horizon.
Maybe it will be different.

Maybe I'l

Spare Change

Please excuse the smell.
I just burned half my apartment.
You're probably smelling the
Noxious fumes from the plastic.

Please excuse my appearance.
I was recently beat with a
Bag of nails.
I got some blood on my collar.

I need to get to my wedding.
I don't know if I have spare change
For the L.
I threw it at a prostitute last night.

Did you see my tie?
I think I tied it around the lampshade
Which I put on my head.
I got twice as drunk as usual.

I need to get to my wedding.
Where are my shoes?
I think the dog ate them.
The dog might be dead.

Please excuse me,
I need to get to the ceremony.
It starts in twenty minutes.
I'

Devotion

Hello.
Don't tell me your name.
I won't tell you my name.
We are two normal people.
We are both nice.
Let's have this one night.
I know of a nice restaurant
Down the street.
We'll eat there and pretend
It's our anniversary.

This is not a date.
This is our one night together.
We will each have selfless devotion
To a complete stranger.
And forget each other
The next morning.

We can talk about the future.
We can talk about the past,
Which we don't have.
Give this one night to our fantasy.
Perhaps we'll get mugged.
You can cry on my shoulder.
We can ride the bus
Three feet from a bum.
The night will envelop us,
As we emb

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

#Live-Love-Write
Literature Lovers

#TheScribblists
Slight Writing Obsession...

#iWriteToInspire
We Write To Inspire.

#Beautiful-Literature
Release the Poet within...

#FreePoetSociety
We Are Poetry.

#Written-Emotion
All of your emotions in writing

#WriteRoomies
All for one and one for all.

#Soul-Poets
Our very souls are our creation!

Show all (19)

Details

Submitted: January 15
File Size: 796 bytes

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 5
Favourites: 5 [who?]
Views: 71 (0 today)
Downloads: 1 (0 today)

[x]

Sloth

by ~jackgunski, Jan 15, 2013, 6:33:55 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

This room keeps on rolling.
The furniture breaks as it hits each wall.
Papers fly everywhere.
Metal flies into the wall sockets,
And causes blue sparks.

This is the tumbler.
The stones inside become smooth
And get a subtle shine.
Nothing can get in or out,
But we know what's happening inside.

You can stop the tumbler,
But you won't.
People can only stare
At things in motion.
To interject would be asking too much.

The room keeps on rolling,
But nobody wants to step outside.
They don't know what's happening there.
The world may be spinning around them,
And nobody wants to make that adjustment.