Writin'

29M

[burnttoast7272]

i knew i wasn't wanted but i tried to be anyways.

[tremendouslighthottub]

Attached

You tread only where the stones don’t wobble.

Your feet prod at them to make sure.

Every slight movement in the ground below them

threatens to send you reeling to the dirt.

Falling is fear and fear is the enemy,

for fear is the scalpel which splits the stitches

that hold old wounds closed tight.

I stand behind you and push.

Every tender thing is a strong shove.

Every sliver of love is a palm clapped to your back

giving the pressure which makes avoidance

nigh untenable.

After all, one fights gravity only momentarily.

The swaying and buckling and stumbling

mark an exercise in futility everlasting,

for all of us will one day fall.

Fear is my enemy, too.

Every trembling step I witness shows not the care

with which that step is taken,

for your damning hesitance shouts it down

until quiet is all that remains.

In the silence I hear a distant screaming

and rapid footfalls which echo with the sound

of absence and days gone by.

I shove hard and beg for trust.

I trip your feet and plead for sweetness.

I tie strings about your shoulders and yank

as if love should resemble a marionette’s waltz

because the dance keeps the fear sidestage.

What started as a walk taken side-by-side

has been twisted by us into a death march,

journeyed ever onward in sorrowful hope

that the stones will never give way

and the balance will never be faltered

and the uncertainty will turn into surety

and the silence will one day stop screaming.

[tremendouslighthottub]

The Small Places

The heart’s a tricky little thing.

I carry it always

in every moment, every place

yet it’s never wholly mine,

never settled in one home alone.

One piece lives in the playroom,

wedged between green plastic soldiers

and thick cardboard books.

Peer in: you’ll find a chunk of my old ticker

held hostage by golden curls,

squeaky giggles,

meanie songs,

and I-love-you-Daddys.

Should you make it this far,

please remember:

this piece of me

begs not for rescue—

just for some more company,

and maybe a helping hand.

Another fragment glints

in the cracked mirrors

of the Temple of Iron Exalted,

where pain is half-jokingly worshipped

and grotesqueries are battled in silence

and longing turns to strain,

and strain turns to victory.

If you find it,

perhaps offer a towel, a drink,

and a quiet nod of respect

for it is quite enraptured in its work.

Further still,

you’ll drift through ruined galaxies,

star empires spun

from daydream threads,

where hyperspace lanes and gravitic slingshots

will deliver to you

a sliver of me.

It fires its great cannons

at the paperwork and the silence,

scorning the cubicles and the gray.

Maybe it’s futile—

but it dazzles.

If you’ve located this bit,

there is naught to do but sit

and listen,

for there are tall tales to be told.

There is yet another piece,

if you are seeking me still.

It waits in a bedroom,

where the lights stay low

and the hum of the window unit

sings a lover’s lullaby.

The bed, squat and black,

is ruled by little nobles

with fuzzy paws

and sleepy eyes

who’ve cemented their claim

with a layer of shed hair.

Above, fairy lights glow

like faded stars

over this kingdom of solitude,

a soft light o’er Sunlight.

And there

in the center of it all

she sleeps, curled like a comma

in a sentence you’d never want to end.

Look closely.

Nestled in her bosom,

and locked away behind

the green of her eyes,

is my heart:

a grateful captive.

It speaks of nothing

but its love for its jailer.

I am no great man, with no golden laurels

or accolades to esteem my name

so don’t go seeking me

where things are lofty

or holy

or grand—

I’m busy with living in small places.

[estranged-sky-deactivated202510]

Garden

All I want to be told is that I changed your life

Even if it's for a second,

even if after you pretend it didn't happen

Just tell me that I made a dent

On this unbreakable shell of a planet

Tell me that I have purpose

outside of what they say to me

Today I'm just glad that I feel something,

outside of what I'm used to feeling

Because that means I'm healing,

even if to the untrained eye my skin

is peeling off in layers

Too thick to dispose of

Too complicated for most,

and too uncontrollable for all

I'm trying to keep my head on straight

But I don't like the way you're saying my name

It's a cross between how I'm your greatest pain

and your most undeniable shame

And I'll ask you why today especially

you act like you can really see me

Only for your shell to remain in place,

a tough exterior I can't break

If I can't rely on you,

I'll have to find myself again

Out from underneath this pen

and travelling back into that garden

Daisies grow and rain doesn't dry,

scratched tile stretches out for miles

I once asked you if I have any time

and you replied that I'm running out of it

You said that I can't tell a story

if I don't know the words

And I can't be hurt

if every single time I shield myself from the burn

You told me that it's okay to love

and it's okay to work,

even if I put more effort into one than the other

You spoke about my unlimited options

when there are really only two

You spoke about dreams and hope

like they were born to be true

And I realized that I talk far too much

I hope more than I love

and I spend more time on myself than anyone

But not out of pity,

out of growth

a hope that spreads higher

than the daisies in this garden

So maybe if I act a little taller in life

unafraid of the space I take up tonight,

I can bloom

and wither at uninterrupted times

Shielded by this garden

soaked with fresh tears

[tremendouslighthottub]

tall tale

there is naught but scribbles and blotches

and half-words lying still upon the page.

it is quite the beautiful frustration,

my lacking the imagination needed

to write a lover such as her.

perhaps, in a moment of divine inspiration,

I could produce a faithful retelling

yet

I can scarcely imagine a soul who’d believe it.

[tremendouslighthottub]

Schrödinger’s Man

in an orgy of flies

swarming the corpse of

a dead rat

in the sewer

that is where you will find me

in a passing glance,

a flash of reflection

in the windows

of abandoned homes

that is where I reside

in the echoed footfall

from a pace unobserved

down the alley

in the dark

that is the home I know

in the wispy memories

of the lover set free

the mind’s closets

averse to recall

that is where I yet linger

I remain

as remains—

buried shallow

briskly left

barely attended

broadly forgot

breathing

[tremendouslighthottub]

Unasked; Untold

Why do you not pry?

Is there no curiosity held in reserve?

No desire to plumb the forbidden depths?

Is it perhaps that the question,

would turn contemplation to possibility?

Is it that thoughts of worldly delight

churn the stomach to ruin

and force the jaws to stillness?

Why, oh why, do you not ask?

Is it the crassness of it?

Is it the shame of the deed?

Is it the loudness of voices?

Is it perhaps that inviting such things

floods you with the remembrance

of a woman’s heavenly burden?

Those antiquated writs that bound you—

paper shackles which cut and stain

and kill the spirit of curiosity within,

enforced upon you by prudish marms

and shouted skyward from battered pulpits

from the aged lips of godly elders,

have they covered the intrigue

in crisscrossed scars?

Perhaps it is more the anticipation—

the tension building as twisting softness

is depressed by the implements

of its encroaching release,

accompanied by a chorus

of gasps and groans and growls

then giving way to a final emanation,

a satyr’s song, as the moment falls away.

Is it company which troubles you so?

Maybe it is the audience, after all.

Maybe it is too much to ask

a creature possessed of your beauty

to scratch the misplaced itches

of a misshapen form.

If only I’d arrived to you

at the peak of human physicality,

etched from marble and strong as steel,

resolute in both will and visage.

Perhaps then I might’ve seen

some of my wretched desires,

those shameful secret wills,

played out tenderly with another.

Instead, faint whispers well within,

begging to be given life

by queries which shall not be heard

exiting your lips.

[tremendouslighthottub]

there exists within me a great hunger

stashed within a strongbox

nestled below the sternum—

a gnawing; a churning

which shakes the confines enough

to rattle my bony snare,

yet for all the bluster

never shall it see the light

[tremendouslighthottub]

overcome

‘round the battlements—

a muster.

war-weary eyes

splintered shields

walls turned boulders

boulders turned pebbles

dried man gristle

and spilt humors,

all arrayed in defensive posture.

no chants ring out

no bright banners wave

no plumes rise high

no rays shine down

there is only gloom now—

and hoofbeats.

the muster readies

to defend the remnants,

the ruins of the shattered keep

though soon

they know

they shall be overcome.

———

prompt by @picklemafia

[tremendouslighthottub]

Maybe.

Each day I open myself from nape to navel

so I may release a thousandscore burdens—

the slithering creeping shreds of innard

allowed to roam and contemplate and find shelter

when they bore into the fleshy bits

of all who would allow a second glance.

I am left unsewn

and have lost the strength in my hands

needed to stitch this rent corpus whole.

Instead I flail haphazardly at the wound,

pulling and stapling and stretching and taping

until a crude seam stems the tide of offal

fashioned from kind whispers and glimpses—

sweet fragments of tender nothings.

I feel the mirrors retch at me

and tears form in the eyes of the onlookers

for I exist as a twisted stillborn—

a homunculus fashioned in the shape of Maybe

awaiting the day when the door shuts

and I inflict myself upon you no longer.

[tremendouslighthottub]

Maybe.

Each day I open myself from nape to navel

so I may release a thousandscore burdens—

the slithering creeping shreds of innard

allowed to roam and contemplate and find shelter

when they bore into the fleshy bits

of all who would allow a second glance.

I am left unsewn

and have lost the strength in my hands

needed to stitch this rent corpus whole.

Instead I flail haphazardly at the wound,

pulling and stapling and stretching and taping

until a crude seam stems the tide of offal

fashioned from kind whispers and glimpses—

sweet fragments of tender nothings.

I feel the mirrors retch at me

and tears form in the eyes of the onlookers

for I exist as a twisted stillborn—

a homunculus fashioned in the shape of Maybe

awaiting the day when the door shuts

and I inflict myself upon you no longer.

[tremendouslighthottub]

to explain the absence

i’ve been getting some of my stuff reviewed and critiqued by people who know what they’re doing regarding poetry

so I’m taking old works and refining them to a higher standard

[tremendouslighthottub]

Coupling

twinned yet not twins, only echoes—

two souls, a hollow call between

waves bouncing back/forth/back forever

once sweet

then

not.

resound, recoil, ring, return—

each strike a cipher

paired tuning forks starved for tone

wanting what was

for what is

is

naught.

the barren grave does not ask why

it only opens,

and beckons.

one sinks, the other hums—

deathknell

again, again, again.

[tremendouslighthottub]

why does tumblr think i wanna see anime boy fanfics

[tremendouslighthottub]

I promise, the little graphics aren’t for engagement lmao. I just like makin em. It also lets you play with structure a bit more than in a regular tumblr post

[tremendouslighthottub]

you are not ensouled

glowing caskets of the Information Age

endlessly typingand-typing-andtypinga://ndtyp-ingandtypingandtyp&typingg

shortwave[dialup.scree.ch] levodopa rays blasting ceaselessly into soft wetware(unwrinkling)

you are not ensouled

bereft neurocataclysms snapping to inattention, dutifully pouring solid nothing[file_unreadable] into canyon landfills

endless netherchains[loop.exe] of blips and chips and silicoid unlife roll great boulders up mountains and hallucinate them to the base again

Samsonian locks fall ceaselessly from the shoulders of the builders, oblivious to their squirming and twisting into airtight cells[..partitioning...]

featherweight striving is the molehill below the lofty summit of dead Past(runtime incalculable) but oh, how pretty are the lights which blink and scream (redgreenblue)

your unzipped golems cast the shadows

on the walls of your caves

… . . .

you are not ensouled

[tremendouslighthottub]

you are not ensouled

glowing caskets of the Information Age

endlessly typingand—typing-andtypinga://ndtyp—ingandtypingandtyp&typįňgg

shortwave[dialup.scree.ch] levodopa rays blasting ceaselessly into soft wetware(unwrinkling)

you are not ensouled

bereft neurocataclysms snapping to inattention, dutifully pouring solid nothing[file_unreadable] into canyon landfills

endless netherchains[_loop.exe] of blips and chips and silicoid unlife roll great boulders up mountains and hallucinate them to the base again

Samsonian locks fall ceaselessly from the shoulders of the builders, oblivious to their squirming and twisting into airtight cells(..partitioning…)

featherweight striving is the molehill below the lofty summit of dead Past(runtime incalculable) but oh, how pretty are the lights which blink and scream(redgreenblue)

your unzipped golems cast the shadows on the walls of your caves

you are not ensouled