ShopDreamUp AI ArtDreamUp
Deviation Actions
Literature Text
The curtains don’t open
anymore, and he is growing
staler with the air
and the bread in his fridge
is a lost cause.
He is a lost cause,
he tells himself
at night, when the shakes
come, and go, and
come again, and sharp
edges form upon his shape-
lessness.
(I’ve seen him
before, from afar
and up close,
and I know him
well.)
He thinks
a tragedy might sort him out,
or maybe a haircut, but
bad things don’t happen
to people like him, they say,
and he knows the sun
will never kiss the back
of his neck.
anymore, and he is growing
staler with the air
and the bread in his fridge
is a lost cause.
He is a lost cause,
he tells himself
at night, when the shakes
come, and go, and
come again, and sharp
edges form upon his shape-
lessness.
(I’ve seen him
before, from afar
and up close,
and I know him
well.)
He thinks
a tragedy might sort him out,
or maybe a haircut, but
bad things don’t happen
to people like him, they say,
and he knows the sun
will never kiss the back
of his neck.
Literature
turning five into four.
i. gregory,
with his sun-kissed skin & microscopic eyes,
knows not to don rachel's rose-coloured glasses
or take her reality classes.
although he is swimming in disbelief,
he can't help feeling like he's mourning
something that he's not yet lost.
ii. rachel's forte was never gardening.
her family tree could rain its leaves all day
but she will not be the rake, clawing
its way through the earth
to neatly bundle a bouquet;
she can not see ian's pleas
through a rose lens with embers in her eyes.
iii. ian is not afraid to get his hands dirty.
if an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,
then maybe rachel was the sacrifice,
& he will not h
Literature
heritage.
reminding me of where my blood sprung from.
to eat cats' tongues. to eat tree bark, but not a tree's dry veins. peeled off. i am peeled off of the pavement where i melted in the coal mines' sun. a daughter of dry coughs and hidden colours, i swim like an owl through silence through streets. worn down.
to drink the light of the bus' front lights broken at rain. to drink water from the tap in the kitchen. endless fountain of harsh joy. hard work.
heart blood.
Literature
Hauntings:
i. a fair wraith of fatality
even from here
i can hear the crunch of your brittle
ribcage as your bones sunder.
they look at you like you're a moonflower,
with their small green eyes and
low-chattering fingers.
they want to know
the things that are wrong with you:
poetry on discoloured skin,
burning cigarettes,
your twisted black nights,
fear of the sun,
mind's intrusion of flicking tongues and
pressed flesh and
fusing vitals-
and how you still haunt:
silhouette teetering on the blurred edges of our memories,
phoenix eyes behind ember hair,
just a trivial skyward curve of your lips.
yet has no one noticed: you're not breathing?
Suggested Collections
Featured in Groups
My first poem of 2016! This is basically just me making myself write so that I don't enter into another months-long dry spell. I experimented with some things here, and I think they mostly turned out pretty decent. It feels a little different writing free verse again, since the last time I did that was nearly a year ago, and I feel a little rusty. This was still fun to write though, in its way, and I hope it was okay to read too!
As always, comments are welcome and appreciated.
As always, comments are welcome and appreciated.
© 2016 - 2024 HuntingForHappiness
Comments6
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
This is a terrific read. Love the use of white space, and the idea of the narrator growing 'staler with the air'.
Must admit, I can't quite reconcile the title with the body of the poem (which might well be entirely my problem), but I do love the language, so plain and so evocative at the same time.
Must admit, I can't quite reconcile the title with the body of the poem (which might well be entirely my problem), but I do love the language, so plain and so evocative at the same time.