Prose

A Lot of Flowery Words in Failed Justification of Being a Tramp and Sentimenal Narcissist
I hold within me an irrational drive to immolation, to love with abandon and ferver of such white hot intensity that I am disintegrated in its rapture. This need has made me fickle and capricious at times, what can even be conceived as cruel. I have neglected the earnest embers of warm, familiar hearths to spark at tissue paper and underbrush, to burn bright and hot and brief and mourn in the cold ashes of once-beautiful homes and barren fields. This is not merely a behavior that I inflict upon the world but a demon that possesses this corpse and makes a mockery of lives lived too hard to reach maturity, snuffed with too much oxygen, and brittle with carbonization and burnt out lust. I demand unfairly a love that can only see its own glow in the reflection of eachothers eyes, a love that dares not blink for fear of losing its heat to the forgetful night, a love that cannot possibly be sustained with all the fuel of a lifetime, let alone one split between so many lives. My love spits on the rational and dessicates the practical realities of life. It is warm, but it is harsh and dry and defiant and stubborn and selfish and I am it. I have burned everything I have touched save that which is too cool and damp to devour to dissatisfied conclusion. I can apologize, and have done so, to those I have scarred in my impulse, but I cannot stop. I cannot be stopped. These flames lick through bars and chains and fences,and render locks and hinges devoid of framing, for they hunger for an impossible satiation, as do I, and will die without that fevered struggle, as will I. I hold within me an irrational drive, and it is the heart that regretfully keeps me alive.
By D3512 years ago in Poets
Armor
As I climbed inside of you You I thought I became harmless I took up arms Against all that would do me harm I fought every battle I could
By Atomic Historian2 years ago in Poets
Happy Birthday. Content Warning.
Happy? – you hurt me, eye for — I I guess we were both just kids searching for answers In this mess it's kind of messed up right?!
By Dan-O Vizzini2 years ago in Poets
The Confidence Man
He’ll draw you in Telling you lies Saying what you Want to hear He’ll try to sell You a big hoax Or something He doesn’t own
By Mother Combs2 years ago in Poets
A Lost Unicorn
Sitting here Pondering life All it’s struggle and strife Wondering if any of it is worthwhile Wandering through this wilderness
By Atomic Historian2 years ago in Poets
The Last of Us
I see you for what you are The magic you hide from the world A magic that only those pure of heart can see You try to hide it
By Atomic Historian2 years ago in Poets
Wishing on Paper Planes
I am only as good as the people in the room. I hate that. I will not lift you out of your funk. I will not supply laughter where there is none. I will not be the one to bring the light with me if you want to wallow in darkness. I am only as good as the people in the room. But I want to be better. I wish I laughed more easily. I wish I had dreams. Then I could make plans to get to them. I wish I recalled memories filled with joy when I reminisced, imagining everything my life could be, content with what it is. I wish I threw paper planes with the future scrawled in their folds and competed to see just how far I would go. I wish I could watch the rise and fall of my journey, inhaling and exhaling the way the love of my life breathes deeply in sleep right next to me. The way I imagine he would. And I wish I didn’t wish to be free of loneliness by picturing a fictional you at my side. I wish I found freedom in the single me that I am and balanced myself on a seesaw by having the courage to stand at its fulcrum. I wish I didn’t wither at every unexpected turn but found myself walking on tightropes and falling from airplanes and landing in a pile of adrenaline on mountaintops that kiss the clouds. I wonder if the scale would tip too far if I jumped into the pool before I knew how to swim. But I am still here instead of where I could be. What do the paper planes say? Learn to be free of the people in the room.
By Bugsy Watts2 years ago in Poets
your glow. Top Story - February 2024.
This is my gratitude, shaped like a secret, buried in a silence you will never hear. I was a cloudless sky with thunder rolling beneath my skin. You still inhaled my presence like it was pouring rain. Like maybe you’d been buried in drought up until then.
By Poppy 2 years ago in Poets
Hidden
I am not strong You will never know me to say That I am beautiful I know, with my whole entire being I am defined by my reflection
By Siobhan McSweeney2 years ago in Poets
Self-Promotion
Self promotion is the worst It’s rowing against the ocean Not just one tide Fighting every fish It’s a free for all
By Atomic Historian2 years ago in Poets
Purple Machine
Numbers trickling down pages A song of sages Machine elves dancing through our minds Yet, there is nothing to find An enigma lost to time
By Atomic Historian2 years ago in Poets
Hands
The blue veins criss-crossed the backs of his hands like roadways on a topographic map, showing where his life had taken him. The opposite sides, calloused and strong like a vice, rivaled a grizzly bear’s. At least that’s what I imagined when I was young, looking at those hands, wondering if mine might ever look so scarred and weathered. Those were the hands of a hard man, a hard life. Mine rarely do anything more strenuous than striking the letters on a keyboard. His were gentle only when resting on my shoulder or giving my hair a tousle.
By Randy Baker2 years ago in Poets