Baby it's wet outside

by shira

It’s raining
Yeah, it’s raining
No, it’s lightning
On my shoulders
Dodging raindrops
Putting lights out
Digging caveman holes
In candles, flashlights, lanterns, lamps
Scraping grape graffiti
Lightning’s purple
Don’t you know
Green, greener, golden
It will tell its story

I’m sitting
In my bedroom
And the harp I’m listening to
Can calm crashes
And make the leaves stick to the trees
Keeps the braches from all splitting
If I’m lucky
It’ll keep me stuck to you
It’ll keep me from splitting

you always give me some new reason to write about you

by bachelorette

I've got a brand new day
to want to see
your happiness
ripped
to bits and pieces
but it's for the
same old reason

so I'll flee the country
and assure myself with
everything cheap and everything easy
(the way you like your girls)

you are the bigger person,
I am the bigger person

and if I threw up a meal
or slit a wrist
or wrote a longing poem
I'd be damned if
any of it was done in
your name.

I used to let it bother me that you were
content and fulfilled with female after
manufactured female and I still had
this void

because my face was NEVER
prettier than yours and I
think you like that in a partner;
a little bit of ugly
inferior lowlier
less intelligent
so that you never forget
what a god you are.

and I hope that one day
someone hits you harder
than you did me that
night, those long months

someone slaps the PRETTY
out of you and brings
you down to earth

someone shows you how
it feels to lose and
how it feels to carry a void

I'll write it sing it dance it
throw it down somewhere
and never fucking relent.

checkered floors

by: recovery

I don’t like the feeling that’s creeping back again
The dark cloud of my past trying to sink back in
It’s been clear these past few months
But rain is bound to come
The shadows that stood behind me
I will soon have to succumb

Living life backwards
In hopes to only move forward
Will never get you anywhere
But one step forward
And a lifetime behind

Praying For You Like My Dying Uncle

by Surreal as Sunlight

and so my mother took me to the temple
where I was told to pray
and my forced head led my forced heart
then together we prayed away

I think it's cruel how we cry out to Him
Only when we need Him most
When it's life or death
maybe then there's a Holy Ghost

Else case, he doesn't exist
We don't need Him
he doesn't need us
and then we'll go out on a limb

Like when my uncle is dying
then only He can help now
so I'm forced to pray to him
no choice is bound

and similarly
you write on your blog
internet prayers, cries for help
and it's all heard loudly through fog

and the ones your worship
don't ever answer your wishes
you'll have your revelation
while you're doing the dishes

If no signs of return
are a reason not to believe in Him
then no signs of return
are a reason not to believe in them.

i was lying, because i think the color green looks dumb on carpet.

by malenkaya is erin

in my head,
i would often toy with the idea of us meeting
accidentally and awkwardly
under the most random
of circumstances
where we would then
stumble through hellos
and how have you beens

but eventually smile and slide back into
easy conversation

except that
we live too far away
for that to ever happen
for us to casually
bump into each other
at a Walgreens or a Best Buy somewhere

so when we do see each other
it's planned in advance
and knowing that i worry
and i worry about looking pretty
enough for you to pay some attention

but maybe that's to be expected
when we hadn't seen each other for months
(and also considering
our past.)

anyway, when i walked
into your basement that day
everything had been redone and rearranged
the TV was in the wrong place
and the walls were green
to match the carpet
which was green too, just a lighter shade

your dad asked me what i thought

(i thought

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG
with your son but i hope someone finds out soon
and
a part of me still just really wants to tear out his throat
then he can just seduce girls with sign language instead!)

i said, it looks nice, and
WHAT GREAT COLORS!

later i found myself looking for excuses to walk away
to the bathroom or to walk outside or to back downstairs to
sit on the couch
just so i wouldn't have to stand alone with you
alone and way too close
and too familiar
but when you cornered me like you did
in the hallway, taking up my hands in yours
like you used to
i froze
when you got close
and i mumbled something
and i ran back downstairs.

later, you said you were only trying to kiss me
on the cheek
i said sure, okay
(but considering our past
and that it's past
tell me,
with your lips so close to my neck,
how was that necessary?)

Confidence is Relative

by: shira

Confidence is relative
Forced relations with circumstance
I make you the maddest you’ve ever been
Maybe I’m trying
To make you scream at me
Go ahead
I’m listening

I’m a door that will not open
And a sink that won’t turn off
I will tell you all my secrets
But my eyes can’t fix a leak

I wish I were a pyramid
Built by stronger stones
Than these rocks I have for feet
And the straw I have for legs
Stockpiled in a tangled mass
Of worries and mistakes

I remember I'm lucky

by: shira

I have a father
Mine is a man
I see in the morning
And blink through at night
My eyes reflect photographs
He’s burned behind buildings
Of our hands interlocked
While I swing in the back yard he built

The car that he drives
Is his home when he’s gone
My mother and I
Two typical shames
That must be escaped
So I wash my eyes of his skid marks
Staring at the kitchen table without crumbs

My father’s a man whose mornings I mourn
He’s gone from my memory
And sticks to still thoughts
My skin is still burning
I fell from his knee

He wants to be friends
I tried to hold hands
He said I had to stop crying first
A child
Much a busted hubcap
Scraping against what makes it all run

He knows I’m his daughter
I know I’m his daughter
I know that I’m lucky
But want even more
I’m ungrateful, unnerving, uncommon among
Girls who grab onto their fathers and weep

I’m lucky I know and can feel that way
But I look to her before I speak
Knowing my place
Hiding my face
Since I could read my mother’s mouth

Subsistence

by: tinny tulle

I waited and watched as every second ticked away
Anticipating your arrival
Trying to imagine where you were each minute of the journey

But something slowed and delayed you
Something unexpected
You never came

Instead I went to visit you
In a white room with no windows
Covered in sheets

Lost in your own world
Fighting to survive

Trapped in chemicals and tubes
Preserving your existence

The Wait Of a Red Light

by Surreal as Sunlight.

As the blue hue of the TV illuminated our faces
We watched as actors acted like real life was fake
and in the movies, they swing so quickly around the bases
and when no one was looking, each chance we'd take

to kiss quickly and our hearts would smile.
The orange fires embers stuggled to burn
to keep us warm, under our blankets for awhile.
Someone once said that kissing in movies is how we learn,

But movies can only take you so far.

For instance you drove me home later that night,
and my headed rested on your shoulder the whole way.
And I said I love you sometimes, sometimes you might
And each time the red lights were lit and we had to wait

I'd take my chance like no one could see
and suddenly the wait wasn't so long anymore.
Red lights are just for you and me,
and green lights mean pedal to the floor.

So we can get to the next, and hope for yellow.

i don't like to title my writing?

by bachelorette

for every profound moment spent
the ribbon is pulled more tightly
around my neck and i can feel this
in my throat, i always can
and i always try so hard to keep
it from coming up.
i never succeed.

you've been gone since the leaves
turned since the air turned
frigid and i think that i am frigid
but slowly meleting. leaking on
the hardwood, on the carpet
and spoiling everything good.

i couldn't hold you tonight
it wouldn't be like before,
it wouldn't be the same Glycerine.
you couldn't hold me tonight
because you've coughed this mess up
and out. i'm not your disaster
to mend to.

i haven't coughed this mess up
and out. still there, too much
of it, i wish i could starve myself.
i wish i could hold these guilts
and sins further from my face,
nearly out of perspective and into
some sunrise/sunset where the glare
would be too bright for me to
comprehend, and in return, for me
to care.

i would pierce my skin if it might
resolve every imperfection
mistake
flaw
wound

i would do anything to feel at home
right here.
this ribbon pulls so much tighter
and its up but not out.
you're coming up, i can't quite
get you out.

Give me something to hold onto

by shira

Give me something to hold onto
And I’ll give you my jacket, my blanket, my hands
To hold and wash over you
To keep you warm and give you chills

I take breaths like you make music
With your drums
With my mouth and nose
You inhale melodies
I sing in harmonies
Let’s walk together
I’ll step one way
You’ll fall in place
With your feet still jaunting, glowing, pounding

If it’s all like this
The trees and the streets and my heart and my head
It’s not as bad
As I thought
To be in love
With someone you love
Because it all looks brighter
When things get darker
So you’re near

I’ve sworn off resistance
Of bees and honey and you
I’m sweet sometimes
I sting sometimes
But you come back for more
And I stop trying to stop you

Pale Blue Skies and Seagulls that Cry

by Surreal as Sunlight

Through screams of an alarm clock
he'd wake up in the morning
And he would smile up on the crying
of 23 seagulls in their glory

as the waves crashed
he'd fix her what she needed
to live she needed his love
and he knew this and proceeded

She had a severe condition
capsules in a pale shade of blue
controlled her everyday actions
and he would say "i love you too"

And because he felt that
he owed her all his blood
He would dig himself out
everyday out of the mud

He was the one to remember
to get on the chair
and fetch the bottle
to feed the blue in care

And one evening
when he stumbled upon an old stone
one that boggled his head
he questioned her

in her head she had so much fury
but in her heart she still had so much love
that she hid away.

and the seagulls were drowned out and shooed away
by the screams of their neighbors

And he despised her
he loved her in his heart.
but he hid it away.

And the chair never left the table
and he discontinued his services

She was so disheartened that
she didn't get the chair either

They never saw eye to eye again.

slowly, her heart began to fade.
Until the cure left her system.
And she shut down.

When he realized that she passed away
He got on the chair
And every little blue treasure
took a trip down an orifice

he made an effort to stand
Until the seagulls realized what was wrong
and they shrieked at the thud
as his body slid down the mud.

Drunk Driving

by Surreal as Sunlight

When you left that night
I was still under your influence
And I needed to get out

My foot became one with the gas pedal
Suburban lights glazed past me
Like a stampede of fireflies

I arrived at your dwelling
and when the eldest of three
exhausting boxes was missing

My
Chest
Dropped.

Breathing went up past 80 mph

The wheel spun around and I followed it.
I was well informed of his location, so that's where my hands and foot led me next.

It was no suprise,
there was you,
and the oblivious.

I wanted to scream out the truth
So that maybe he could know

but all that came out was my slurring
through a blaring horn.

And I tried again, but the same thing happened.

That sight forced shots down my thoat.
Feeling more heavily influenced than ever.

Somehow I ended up in the left lane.
I stayed there too, so smashed.

You might even call it crunk.

I wasn't wrong until I came head to head with another.

So I swerved right.
and swayed my way back home.

A hangover of guilt took me over.
The cure? Truth, maybe.

when you think you've left

by shira

when i'm a bird
and you're the storm
leading me leaving home
i wash sea salt off my arms
to make myself rougher
to smooth down blocks that keep me from talking

i've loved louder things
than sirens or bells
and you're quieter than most
until i've gotten into your head
and the colors never stop
until they reach the core
where my head meets your chest
and your heart meets my mind

i'm sorry if i'm too much
it's nothing i can return to birth
like fingerprints or learned words
that all mean i have loved you
and all come naturally

i know why i'm shaking
underneath warmth
it's because i'm home
though i thought i had left