[x]

shoppingGod, I found you at a wet market in China
between a trussed up duck and some heavy hunk
of fat that was going cheap, stinking with salt and flies;
you were lying on your side, a landscape in fists and thighs
and not one of them there could moan the way you could,
that peevish bloated howl. I looked at you, slick jowls
amongst the rinds and ropes and toads, and thought
about the shops in San Francisco:

rows of jars, neat shelves and every aisle
mopped hourly, a pert teenager standing to scan
your bottles and bottles of wine--I thought about you
loitering in the toothpaste section, breathing in the gloss
and promise of it, while the

AlmanacIt is not October until a stray cat tries to follow you home.

It does not have to be a black cat.
It does not need to have
whiskers warped like whirls of smoke disturbed,
fur matted with ravenous burrs,
frame as gangly as a sapling with bark destined
to keep count of age rings.

The cat can be fat
in an ungluttonous way,
like a harvest moon.
If it's hungry, just feed it the snack cakes
that expired in June.

It is not October until you're trailing a shadow
other than your own. Say, you snagged
the silhouette of a picket fence
on the cuff of your jeans,
or the underbelly
of a scarecrow shaped
like the barn-hound
snoozing on th

You Need A New MusePoets, if your muse smells like eggnog, boiled eggs, fresh eggs,
or any sort of egg at all: get a new muse. If your muse makes sounds-
chomping or mewing, smacking, or worse, slurping - when she eats
animal crackers: you need a new muse. If she’s that sloppy gal that
downs a pint and hollers, “Freebird” at the bar, you know where I’m going with this:
you need a new muse. And trust me, pudding, when your muse misquotes
Bill Cosby while eating jello, you're going to wish you had gotten yourself
that new muse.
If she begins to insist on beginning debates with “irregardless,”
you won't need a dictionary to tell that you need a new muse. Even brings
to question your rhyme scheme or does not know how to tell you
she set the table in iambic pentameter, seriously, you need
a new muse. If you can’t get her to write you letters, but can’t break her
from sending four-page texts, then it’s time to call in a new muse. If she doesn’t know
t

the leper and the lambbaby boy grew up and
the thorns left his crown;
his sides cry red,

it scares me to hear the
same stories in his sighs.

he is the kind of poetic violent whose
words are like calculated anvils; he
dissipates between my bones and

my heart will burst, I swear it. I am
afraid of balloons and the imminent
explosion of my delicate monstrosity
rising through my throat and suffocating--
but it’s really beautiful

when he turns over and rubs the galaxies
congested within his eyes. I believe in
shooting stars and intoxicated nights and the
prickled promises intertwined between our
fingers, as I miscalculate how fragile I really am

it&rsquo

leech jarand with a rusty scalpel
(which I always have on hand)
I deflower myself,
calculatingly,
to thwart others' ungainly fingers.
I make careful incisions
on wrists, ribs, pelvis;
but this pesky skin keeps
knitting itself back together
(albeit imperfectly)
when I and my lancet
idle.

we make poor surgeons,
my heart and I.

Rhubarb.i.

there is a locket
with books and birds
and us,
entwined

ii.

passed, September
brings October;

the sky, earth is
lilac

iii.

we touched without
movement,

your hands sighed

iv.

phrases and eyes sway me;
I will be grey
when you are

v.

a town of crystals,
sepia-sun and
peace;

I am there, within
the city

vi.

we speak of making
love, and I will
admit an
enigma

vii.

you have only two
names;

both are kind

viii.

and we will
live, in the
dawn of contentment;
naked and alive

ix.

pulsatilla for my
eyes, sulphur
for I;

my spirit is calm,
my body is tired

x.

and soon, it will
be December,
and while distand l

Four Things She Thought About Before She Jumped1.
She thought about her sister and how the shape of her face
became foreign in certain light, as if carved by the hands of a man
who had spent too much time on oil and canvas
to remember his own skin. Her eyes began to resemble chips of ice
as they filled with rainwater; the world like a river
that runs over them and
through them
without touching.

She thought about her sister
trying to talk in her sleep—
the way her tongue flapped uselessly
about her mouth, a coil of smooth muscle pinning itself
to her teeth. It spat syllables
like broken stones. She thought about her sister spread across
the bed sheets, palms turned upw

counting phosphenes.sometimes i imagine a couple
that can't agree on children.
so in the meantime they settle
to use protection
until they come to a conclusion.
he's poking holes in their condoms
while she sleeps and
she's taking precautionary birth control
when he turns his back.
i wonder if they're happy, anyway.

i had a dream.
i don't remember all of it, just tidbits.
i recall you setting our family's home aflame
and curling up with your notebooks in the fireplace
and shrugging when you realized you couldn't escape.

that time in the water
my lungs felt like they were on fire.
my skin prickled and i could tell my hairs were on end,

Mimicrymildewed [ghosts]
haunt the c.r.a.c.k.s in the w        do not
                           a        mistake
                           l        their voices
                           l        for
                           s

FaithFaith sits quietly, with crossed hands,
Because she knows it's better
Than giving fear a voice
(Voiceless things cannot taunt you).

A little worm wriggles through
Crevices in her mind; time is both
Friend and foe (just a little more
And life will blossom
Opening up for your dissection,
Bidding rest to your inquisitions,

Only to have its paper petals collapse;
Your magnifying glass
Smolders its final, frail breaths).
"Recycled," Faith attests
As smoke swirls into her breast
While her lips adorn a smile.

"You've much to learn," she coos
And cradles the scorched offering on her tongue.
She swallows and you hear the sizzle
That follows the kno

Limbo (a.k.a. Poems from Work)I.
The machine's being stupid
and her card isn't working,
but he's heard it all before.
He's the kind of man
who expects hurricanes;
he sees the waves
rocketing towards him
and doesn't move a muscle
on principle.

II.
His mind is a prison
and his eyes are on the bars.
They can't keep him here,
not forever.
So he throws himself
against the cage,
knowing that one day
it must break.

III.
She's so young, barely an adult.
Her back bends and aches,
and he hates how her shins
creak and wobble
when she tries to walk.

IV.
He loves
those green slips of paper
as if they were his children:
numbered, ordered, stacked,
worth so

Splits lips upon starsMorning
splits
open, like orange-flesh
cradled
in a palm.

I tuck consonants between my
lips/
draw moon-craters in my eyes; I make wishes
upon stars
that are too far away to realise and hope
that somehow things will
change. Yet

the sun is still a mere hole
in the
sky.

a moist heart lineunwrap my ribs. carefully,
like a present you've been waiting for
since october.
smooth out the wrinkles
along my forehead, sip
the lines from my palms.
write letters to constellations
along my marked calves, and
stain my upraised mouth with
new words that don't
belong to me. sketch
characters inside my
elbows and draw their faces
down my stomach.

take a microscope to the pores
between my vertebrae, set
original sentiments and
grow them carefully. look through
my corneas like window-panes
shattered by heat from
a church fire. clean
the bridge of my nose of
headaches and bottles and bottles
of asprin, vicodin and someth

frozen/headlightsI am nervous

unsettled, unprepared
impressed to the point of
intoxication

perhaps I am playing the part of
a girlchild, reincarnated from something striped
hands-shaking, violin bones (high-
strung)

perhaps it is/has been/will be
you
is it cliché to make comparisons to
kryptonite, to
an envelope delivered with a
white settling of
anthrax?

your smile tangles with the
half-poetry you breathe out instinctively, sharp and
wintered

you are surprising like
frostbite. the soft teeth of morning
freeze; and I, dull, wordless,
naive and lightning-struck

I am nervous

The Growing Seasoni.
we slipped between each other's flesh,
intoxicated on the nectar—
never careful enough
to avoid the bitter seeds
of a previous commitment.

ii.
each night the pregnant ache coaxes
wicked acts to replay
along my nerve endings and synapses;
each night, the gardener's
tending hands
rooting deep.

iii.
were I to untether myself,
to prune the growing stillborn
from my chest,
you'd have no secrets
conceived of sin;
no reason to carry my face,
my voice, my touch,
in a painful miscarriage
of our unprotected actions—

were I
less than a weed.

iv.
each morning my stomach rejects
the early hour
into my utilitarian b

Browse More Like This

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More from ~violetense

thoughts of thornsyou were sent to me--
but as blessing, or lesson?
only time will tell.

Wake-up callwhen you're drowning in an ocean of sad thoughts,
you don't trip out onto the beach:
sooner or later, the waves will sweep you off your feet
and you will be unprepared
when the waters close over your head.
instead, you take a deep breath
and say your prayers
and you dive in.
the quickest way to learn to swim
is to have no other choice.

Lesson learnedShe fell first, and scraped herself up on impact.
By the time you were ready to let to and trust that she would catch you,
she was no longer there.
She picked herself up, dusted herself off, and moved the fuck on,
because she's stronger than you.
And you were left holding the pieces when you hit the ground.

ElogioHas sangrado demasiados poemas de venas.

Por errorPudimos la fe en cielos falsos.

december 2010i am not hungry. i am not hungry.        no breakfast. no lunch. no snack. no dinner. zero zero zero
i am not hungry. i am not hungry.        food is bad. i don't need to eat. i don't need to eat. i don't
i am not hungry. i am not hungry.        need to eat. i don't need to eat. i don't need to eat. i don't
i am not hungry. i am not hungry.        need to eat. i don't need to eat. i don't need to eat. i don't
i am not hungry. i am not hungry.        need to eat. i don't need to eat. i don't need to eat. i don't.
i am not hungry. i am not hungry. must not eat. will not eat. cannot eat. do not eat.
resolution for today: i will not eat.

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Submitted: November 13, 2012
Submitted with: Sta.sh Writer

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Cathie

by ~violetense, Nov 13, 2012, 2:15:49 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

_{Salt-and-pepper hair contrasts sharply with the crisp, starched pillow; bone-thin arms resemble bed rails-- tears in my arms, the morphine drip in your vein. My inner rage refutes your calm acceptance. You ask if we are waiting for you to die: no. We are waiting for a miracle, we are waiting for you to heal-- We are waiting for something that will not happen. We are stretching for something that is out of reach. We are holding onto our obsolete hopes, the small fragments of our lives so closely, we cannot see the bigger picture of eternity. In a paradox, God is calling you clearly, but we can't seem to hear His voice-- only the silence ringing in our ears as the monitor stops your breathing ceases your face un-creases-- and, for the first time in years, you run Home.}

Cathieby ~violetense

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

I have always been close to my paternal grandmother, ever since I was a child. When I was in elementary school, the dementia began to set in. It robbed her of her clarity and, eventually, her dignity. My strong, independent grandmother was moved to an assisted-living facility, because she became unable to take care of herself without help. Despite crippling arthritis and the encroaching memory loss, Grandma held her own from that point on, even if she needed a little bit of help.

The spring of the year in which I was fourteen, my grandmother took a turn for the worse. She contracted an internal infection and landed in the hospital. Her heart was very weak, she struggled to breathe, she was immobile, and she was in unimaginable pain. Her morphine drip was near-constant, and even then, she was unconscious most of the time.

After several weeks, she was moved to hospice care. I played hooky from school to care for her while my parents met with the hospice workers; I shifted her on the hour to prevent bedsores, I rubbed her frail hands to warm them, I kept an eye on the heart monitor, I adjusted the cannula that fed her oxygen when it slipped over her papery skin. At that point, we knew she was dying. It was only a question of when and how we could make her most comfortable in the interim.

She was skeletally thin by this time, and it made her look unbelievably frail. Her skin sheared and tore when she moved too much. At the site of the IV, florid bruises bloomed like wilted flowers. She had stopped eating and drinking the day before and the dehydration was already taking its toll. Ever few minutes, I would wet her lips to keep them from cracking, she was so dry. As hazy as things must have been for her, she knew she what was coming.

The night before I resumed classes, I spent hours in her room, just sitting at her bedside, holding her hand. At some point I started crying. She was unconscious, or so I thought; her state was transient, and you could never be sure of how much she perceived of what happened around her. And as I stroked her forehead, her eyes opened, and she spoke for the first time since I had arrived. Every breath costing her, she begged me not to cry, and that's all she managed before she again lost consciousness. Disregarding entirely the strict policy, I removed my surgical mask, bent to kiss her cheek, and crawled into her bed to hold her. She weighed no more than a child in my arms. And that's when I finally accepted the inevitable.

I left that night with a promise to return after school the next day. I never spoke to her again. The following evening, the phone rang, and I picked it up without thinking first. She was gone. My father had stepped out into the hallway to have a word with the attending and she had slipped away in those few seconds. She was alone when she died. I still wonder if she was aware of this, if she was scared. And I still can't forgive myself for leaving her.

I had a ridiculous homework load that night, but not much was accomplished, needless to say. A few minutes after I had hung up, I sat down at the computer to continue composing my final essay for a class and just lost it. Any shaky grip I'd had on my grief just dissolved. I was a wreck. I cried so long and hard that I felt sick to my stomach. With everything else that was going on in eighth grade, I hadn't eaten in four days. I was fairly certain that the cavern yawning deep in my abdomen was no longer mere hunger. Food couldn't fill that emptiness. Nothing could. I had entirely lost my appetite. I wouldn't eat for another 48 hours. It didn't even register at that point.

The formerly paramount importance of schoolwork seemed laughable now. I had bigger things to worry about. I never did finish that crucial essay. Instead, I stayed up until 3 a.m. composing this before crawling into bed and crying myself to sleep.

This was written several years ago, so I apologize in advance for the fact that it's not my best work. I've matured a lot in my writing since then.

I hadn't thought of this in ages. A dear friend of mine lost her grandmother, with whom she was extremely close, this past weekend. And it felt like losing Grandma all over again. I wanted to post this not only for her but also for anyone else who has been in this situation before.

I want to say this: I know this isn't what you want to hear, but it never really does hurt less, that hole in your life. It never fills in. You just learn to dance around it. And sometimes, you will stumble, and you will slip, and it will snag you and you will fall. But you will climb your way to the surface every time, and the pain will dull, and you will make it through. I promise.

Please do not use without my permission.
Comments are welcome and greatly appreciated. Any feedback is great to hear. What can I do better?

EDIT: I've been featured here: [link] and [link] and [link] Thank you so much!!

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*tguillot Jan 15, 2013 Student Traditional Artist

This is an excellent writing.
Reading it made me feel at least a small part of what you felt.
I'm sorry for the loss of your grandmother.

=HillsOfMyst Jan 8, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Your fantastic work has been featured here!
I'd really appreciate it if you could give the other features some love and

the journal!

`GrimFace242 Nov 26, 2012 Writer

You've hit the two things I'm bad at. Poetry and religion.

So, please bear with me as I "critique" this.

I find when it comes to poetry, it's worlds easier for me just to tell you what I think about the words that are written and how they made me feel instead of trying to understand some hidden meaning or vernacular. Because that just doesn't happen with me. I don't get that kind of poetry.

Your first stanza drops an awesome visual. The hair against the pillow tells me age while the "starched pillow" gives that hospital feel. I immediately knew this wasn't taking place at "home." The arms resembling bed rails, again, I love the play on the hospital setting.

My inner rage refutes your calm acceptance.

is trumped only by the following line

You ask if we are waiting for you to die: no.

Initially I wanted to reverse those because that first line is SO powerful. It describes both people perfectly and honestly. But the second line holds more emotion to me. Emotion because she's obviously ready to die. She's accepted it and is ready and willing to go. A morphine drip means she's got to be in pain. But of course the people that aren't sick don't want to lose those that are sick. That's a completely different level of pain. So of course we wouldn't be waiting for them to die. We're waiting on that miracle that deep down we know isn't going to happen.

I really like that you dedicated an entire stanza to wanting to hold on to that life. Because it reflects life. We don't like to let og of things. Be it objects, people or memories. We hate giving them up. So it's necessary to dwell on that idea.

Your last stanza is where I get hung up and I'd prefer to refrain from going into a detailed comment because clashing beliefs will only cause controversy. What I will say is that the un-creased line is absolutely amazing. It's a grand way to describe death and yet keep it pleasant.

The only thing I can honestly see as needing improvement is all the "we are"s. I'm going to assume you used the repetition on purpose, but I ended up skipping over them and just reading the "good" parts. A stronger word choice could make that whole area show more emotion.

*DamonLSalvatore Nov 15, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

It is very unfortunate these situations are not in our control. The truth however, is she knew you were there by her side. The times you weren't are irrelevant now. That is more than many people can say, those who treated members of family like trash until it was too late and look back with lifetimes of regret. They suffer due to their own foolishness.

She knew you cared. You showed it.
Life may get in the way, but being there when it matters..
That is all any of us can ever do.

~kalamarizoo Nov 15, 2012 Writer

Very lovely piece. Thank you for sharing it with us.

~OddestChild Nov 14, 2012 Student General Artist

Oh, Rebekah. I had no idea you lost your Grandmother and that you were so close to her. I know it was not very recent that this all happened, but even so you, her, and your family are all in my prayers. Your story about her touched my heart, and I am so so sorry for your loss.

~Fyres-Descent Nov 14, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Reading the last paragraph of this description nearly put me to tears. My grandmother is one of my favorite people, and I thank my lucky stars that she's still with me. I am in eighth grade right now and on occassion will find myself thinking of what would happen to me if anything ever happened to her. I can't even imagine, and I'm sorry about your grandmother. Anyways, thanm you fkr saying that. For putting to words what I have been thinking for so long; that if something happens like that, you don't simply get over it, you have to learn to ljve with that, because it's a part of you. I hate irt when people say that they'ren a better place, becahse they're gone, but acknowledging them by carrying their loss with you, allowing yourself to feel that sometimes, is one of the ony ways to let them kniw that they are loved is to grieve for them. Thank you, again.

~FurytheWinged Nov 14, 2012

Thank you bekah

=Bark Nov 14, 2012 Writer

Been there, too often. You capture it very well.

!Kymira12 Nov 14, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Honestly, I don't feel comfortable critiquing this so I'm sorry but I can't. I'm actually caring for my grandmother right now since she is always weak and has heart problems. This really hit home and I would have no idea what I'd do if she was gone. Your poem holds so much emotion and I understood it perfectly before I even read half of your Author's Description (I couldn't read all of it, I kept crying so I stopped). She's the only grandparent I have left. You're right about the fact that losing someone, the pain will never disappear but you do not have to dance around it. You can heal and accept it. The pain will still be there, the memories will still be there, the emotions and connection you have to that person will still be there but the hole will get smaller and you'll be able to live without crying at the mention of their name.

You were really strong for writing this when your pain was still so raw

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