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Profile avatar image for gemnahmaleybray
gemnahmaleybray in Poetry & Free Verse
• 21 reads

mortal punctuality

I make sure to capitalize the G in God so that I build up my way to Heaven.

Even the trivial things matter! They are all trivial. The things. These things. My things. Your things. God’s things are us and we are His.

My side hurts and my Bruises do too. Incisions. Excisions. Draining. Drying. Breaking. Bursting. Crying. Dying. All capitals and capitols.

Even the trivial things matter! They are all trivial. The things. These things. My things. Your things. Satan’s things are us and we are His.

I make sure to capitalize the S in Satan so that, God forbid I’m forbidden, I build a way down to Hell, too.

#mortality #punctual #God #Heaven #Hell #prose #prosetry

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Profile avatar image for paintingskies
paintingskies in Poetry & Free Verse
• 21 reads

BURY ME IN MY COMPUTER, SPREAD MY PIXELS BEHIND THE WIRES.

I tell Téa how my post went viral on tumblr only after

deactivating & she says it’s like publishing poetry posthumously,

& how we could both turn famous once we die. I do still want to

return to Tumblr just for the drama of resurrection: I thank the people

who waited for me all these years & say hi. But honestly

all my favorite people know I’m still alive. I just crave the strangers

who once reblogged my posts to adore me again & again, like a motor

turning over. I do still measure myself in past tense, my bad.

Anyone who misses the old me believes I’m still trying to go back,

& some nights I believe it, too, so I lay in bed & listen to “The Funeral”

& pretend this is it, I’ve lasted long enough, everyone who loved me knew me

wrong. Or not. I have some faith that I am more than a bottle of blood, that if you hung me

up, there’d be a crowd livestreaming beneath me, crying

O! What a gorgeous day for mourning. I remain because I must.

When I die, my body will exhume love like dust.

It will spring out as petals & be hard to inhale. O!

Everyone will hate the scents of rotten flowers that should’ve been

plastic, but I’ve always been too sincere.

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Challenge
1000 black lives a day are aborted - did they matter?
Poetry only.
Profile avatar image for SharondaBriggs
SharondaBriggs in Poetry & Free Verse
• 76 reads

Lost In Arrival

Women across the world suffer from decisions that they have to make.

From moving out of an abusive relationship to hoping "It's just a stomach ache".

We are not perfect and life is hard without us.

When that child is born, it's "mom" they always trust.

Dad can run and start over if it seems to be wrong. But women have to endure it their whole life long. Yes, All lives matter. No matter their breed or color. But if a woman was raped, please have sympathy for the mother. Because what you fail to realize, and I have been told so many times...is when that baby is born, THEIR face is HIS face embedded in their minds. Having to re-live that pain through the love you have for your child, is a hell presented with roses, served on a hot plate but mild. So again I say, it's a decision that a women have to make. Is it fair for the child that started as a stomach ache?

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Challenge
Love
Make a poem about love. It can be any form of love(Romantic, sexual, familial, self-love, etc...). Use any conventions and style you want. Just be creative. I would love to see what you all come up with.
Artscribbler in Poetry & Free Verse
• 10 reads

Eulogies to my love, my dream

They said I should write about you.

"It's therapy", they said.

I wondered how many books I'd need to encompass all the complexities that were woven together to create you.

Or locks to keep this paranoia banging at the back of my head out.

How long would it take for the negative nostalgia to erupt onto those neat pages like hot lava?

This fragile paper would burn before I could get to the tip of the iceberg.

They said I should stop thinking about you.

"Distract yourself", they said.

But don't they see?

I'm just a puppet moving on the strings of this relentless heart.

It yells jump and I reach for the stars.

It pushes me off the edge and I fall for you all over again.

Thinking about you is a habit my mind cannot wad off and I haven't the willpower to veto my way out of it.

Love, I've been dreaming of our sunsets long before the sun knew she had a curfew.

I have gone through the idea of you repeatedly in my mind.

Sketching,

Planning,

Praying,

Believing you'd be mine.

They said I should talk about you.

"It helps" , they said.

I tried, but my body refused to let your name slip from my mouth.

Oh it would have been an ugly site!

All those unwarranted syllables and intonations bouncing off my lips as if you could ever be summed up in mere decibels.

I'd rather keep you where you threaten to eat me up whole than admit that I'm losing my formerly tight grasp on you.

I wouldn't mind really.

Even if you were to traipse back here with red flags stuck to your forehead, I'd still drink from your cup and make an overdraft.

I'd eat up your lies and like a perfect little Oliver Twist ask for seconds.

I swear I'd let you.

They said it's time to say goodbye.

"You need the closure", they said.

So I dressed up in black.

alking slowly towards the place where we first met.

Here where I always thought you were excellent at hide and seek, but it turns out you had left long before I started looking.

I sit on the kindergarten swings and pull out my book and fancy pen.

I hope to write you a letter about this obsession or passion, whatever it is.

I hope to bury you along with all this resentment I brought to this event .

I hope you find a home in these pages and perhaps grow a couple of roots.

I'm going to scribble my last words to you from my relentlessly shaking hands.

I'll hold the pen between fingers exhausted from knocking and gnawing at an imaginary door. Fingers that finally grasped the concept of love and loss.

And on the last page I will write in letters as bold as I was today,

"Here I buried my childhood dream. I hope to God it was a seed. "

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Challenge
Famous last words
I find something fascinating about last words of famous people or well known to writers. (e.g. last words of president Grover Cleveland: "I have tried so hard to do right.") One of my favorites is: Francois Rabelais he was a poet, and has a biography written of him. I would like six last words of famous people.... Writers, playwrights, poets, anything that tickles your fancy, but the sixth one will be your famous last words, because you have already left your writing mark on this world, this makes you famous too. Choose wisely, they are your last impressing words. Hendrick Ibsen was a playwright who was not well for some time and his nurse came in one day and said "you seem to be feeling better this morning, and Ibsen looked at her and said, "on the contrary', and then he died, a bit morbid, but it has substance. Good luck to whoever participates. Don't forget to tag me, I'm a curious cat
Profile avatar image for FreetobeMe
FreetobeMe in Poetry & Free Verse
• 39 reads

Famous last words (revised version) Didn’t follow my own rules!

Francois Rabelais: "I go to seek a great perhaps."

Henrik Ibsen: "on the contrary." Then he died

JFK: One of JFK'S friend came up to him and said, " You can't say you hate Dallas, JFK responded, "That's obvious."

Then he got shot in the head

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: "The general in his labyrinth." It was about Simon Bolivar was shaken by such thoughts of the revelation that the misfortunes and his dreams was reaching his finish line, the rest was darkness: "Damn it, he sighed. How will I ever get out of this labyrinth. Great last words, I just don't understand them.

Meriwether Lewis:"I am not a coward, but I am so strong, so hard to die."

My famous last words: Life is all about change, it's how well one adapts, matters most. I'm dead now, I've adapted very well. © Chantelle Cherie Lily

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Profile avatar image for FreetobeMe
FreetobeMe in Poetry & Free Verse
• 40 reads

I wonder

I wonder if you still smile before you wake up, the half open glance you see the sunlight first seep through. Do you see the Moon still when you shut your eyes at night? There is love holding me together where my heart lie, deciding between your life or mine, if keeping you alive keeps me from finding someone else it will be a choice I make every single time, not everyone can be Neruda, Hemingway, Cohen, or Rilke, there are no more Ginsburg's, Cassidy's, or Kerouacs. I am my own woman, my own Spirit, a fading dot on an oversaturated map with unbearable losses never willing to kill my muse ~ there is no such reward in such a thing, only victory, where Angels sing. My Hand in yours, a delicate process with burning Wings, I'm yours until you leave me for the taking ~ retreat does not accompany me, my infinite infatuation, a collection of unsaid prayers before storming the Gates of heaven or hell for a love like yours.

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Challenge
April Word Play
Use the words egg, cross, son, peeks, purple and arose in a poem...without any reference to Easter.
Profile avatar image for ChrisSadhill
ChrisSadhill in Poetry & Free Verse
• 67 reads

Sleeping In

I arose to the purple hue of an early sunrise flashing across my face. It somehow had sneaked through a tiny opening in my curtains. The warmth on my cheeks contrasted the chilly gusts of air that my oscillating fan rushed across my legs. I receded them under the covers in protest.

The crack of a morning egg on the stove is a familiar sound on a Sunday, and I knew it wasn’t long before my son Ashton, and I would cross paths. Although Blake, my husband, usually intercepted him before he could wake me, as this was my only day to sleep in, it was long overdue for Ashton to get by the guard.

Sure enough, as if the breaking of the shell woke him too, the squeaking of my bedroom door seemed to allow enough room for a two-year-old to pass through. I listened for his footsteps as he creepily inched closer, and in preparation closed my eyes to playfully fake a sleeping mom.

A tap on my arm from a tiny hand forces a playful squint to startle the culprit. He always peeks at me with his eyes hovering just above the horizon sporting a yearning expression. I never deny his cuteness.

So, as always when he breaks through the front lines of daddy’s defense, I accept him into bed for a pre-breakfast morning snuggle.

We sleep in until breakfast is served in bed.

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Profile avatar image for FreetobeMe
FreetobeMe in Poetry & Free Verse
• 25 reads

Poets

Poets share a celestial body of beautiful words. Poetry written like an endless film, long stories, and metaphors that weave together many different strands of cloth. Positioning their souls and minds swirling in awaiting arrival spilled onto endless parchment sewn in pages of books to read. Such perplexing hearts those writers are. Confirmation of languages is heard through their eyes. Such deepest pain resides. Secrets they hold, feeling differently than the rest of the blank world they live in. Its a burning knawing hell most couldn't imagine or endure. A poet A writer A reader they'll give you love so pure So Free. The writer who writes with such bravery. The poet who sheds raw emotion so real its the only way most know how to feel. The paper. The pen. The poet. The writer. Forever a bond. Forever may their readers be fond.

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Challenge
Love
Make a poem about love. It can be any form of love(Romantic, sexual, familial, self-love, etc...). Use any conventions and style you want. Just be creative. I would love to see what you all come up with.
Zeethefoodie in Poetry & Free Verse
• 28 reads

The Game

Love is as terrifying as it is beautiful

As fickle as it's fruitful

A lie, a truth, a game of chance

It takes bravery to play it, you know

And everytime a player loses, a piece of them is taken away

Some would call it a suicide mission

The likes of the story of Icarus, a man who loved the sun so much he flew closer to see more of it and died for his adoration

Flying above, falling, then a sudden crash

To find it and to lose, they feel that same way

Do you ever wonder if Icarus regretted it or not?

He was warned, after all.

His father told him the dangers, and yet...

There is a certain beauty and a certain madness in knowing you might be injured and burned, knowing you might sink into the waves while the unfeeling sun never dims its shine for you once, yet daring to fly closer anyway

Just for a peek, just for a look

For the warmth and comfort that may last a moment and not a lifetime

And it takes even more strength to push past the waves and rise your head, again, to try once more, wounded but undeterred

It's a dangerous game indeed, players be warned

And I would tell anyone and everyone not to play it but

I'm afraid the treasure at the end of the dark labyrinth is much too precious for me to do such a cruel thing

Heartbreak is a certainty but whether it is worth a lifetime of good is up to each of you.

Now ready your hearts for battle, brave warriors.

It may take some tries and you will indeed face injury but may we all find our real and true forever suns so we may taste the undescribable victory that is love by their smile alone

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Challenge
Love
Make a poem about love. It can be any form of love(Romantic, sexual, familial, self-love, etc...). Use any conventions and style you want. Just be creative. I would love to see what you all come up with.
swede6702 in Poetry & Free Verse
• 25 reads

Thought You Were the One...

It kills me inside knowing you will be talking to other guys & seeing them... I didn't even have a chance, you turned cold and went from being my love to being distant. All it took was one day, because of the things I could not control. I see a stranger in your eyes, where once I saw a future soulmate.

No one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, and you will have fights in every relationship moving forward. Are you going to run every time? If you talked to me in person, you would see I did not mean to hurt you. You would see how I look into your eyes, how I hold you, how I kiss you... and you would know how much I adored you. Tell me, how long did it take for you to forget the day we first met, how long did it take for you to forget the feelings we felt.. was it hours, was it days, was it weeks, tell me, how long will it take until I can forget? The answer is I won't because I will never forget how it felt being next to you.

Your knight in shining armor won't be coming for you, he was here in front of you this whole time. Chasing, pleaing, & hoping you would hear his cries for you. I never did this before with anyone, chase them the way I have been trying to rekindle a flame with you. I can't handle knowing how you were with me before & how you instantly became so cold, you gave up without a fight.

The thing is, you closed our book during the interlogue preventing us from making it to the first chapter. This wasn't how our story was supposed to end. You shattered my hopes of ever being in love and while your heart is ice cold, mine is bleeding embers. What a shame we won't get the chance to see how our story ends. I am closing my book & won't be turning another page. Please, before you pick up a new book, read the back so you understand the synopsis before dwelving into the pages. Because I don't want another soul to be tossed aside when the story gets rough like i was, no one deserves that. I never wanted to be on your pile of unread books, but here I am...

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